Another Story Entirely
by Headmistress X
Summary: Because terrible things happen to witches who meddle with time. (Sequel to Ancient Magic) F/F
1. Prologue - The One With The Ending

Disclaimer: This is still Jo's world, just slightly to the left and across the street.

* * *

Each day, Minerva kisses Hermione as she leaves for the Department of Mysteries. "This is the day!" Hermione says, crossing her fingers. Minerva watches as she follows a fistful of floo powder into the green flames of the hearth. Then she sits down to tea and biscuits in the library.

 _They marry in Victoria, make love all day in Taos, and quarrel in Alice Springs. Hermione will not set booted foot on Uluru, no matter how important it is to their mission. Time turns. Danger lurks. Guile cannot hold off the enemy forever._

If her hands shake while pouring, it may be that she is an old woman.

 _They talk all the way to Sacsayhuamán, stop for tea in Gombe, escape with their lives from Chandraguthi. The adepts of the temple there are under constant threat from a world that begrudges the time, resources, and real estate necessary for the pursuit of spiritual matters._

If the morning hour passes slowly, there are books to distract her.

* * *

This morning, like every morning, Hermione kisses Minerva goodbye and tells her, "This is the day!"

On this day, she lets herself be stripped in the clean room, stuffed into a hideously orange pair of coveralls, and sent on to the main laboratory. They are all waiting for her there. She nods to the crew, and they grin back at her in excitement. On a stainless steel table in the center of the room is a small, shiny object. It is slightly larger than the one Hermione remembers from girlhood, but its general shape is the same. A tiny hourglass is surrounded by a gyroscope and a gleaming web of metal perforated with a starscape. It is lovely.

"Right, then? All ready?" She asks. Each member of her team answers in turn.

"The Trace is cast and the monitoring equipment in place, Madam Granger."

"Calibrations are checked and re-checked."

"Wards are in place."

She nods at each pronouncement. Never taking her eyes from the object on the table, she waves her hand. Quick-smart, she is alone in the room. She lifts the object by a golden chain and places it around her neck. The spring mechanism, as small and delicate as the stem of a watch, is cool to her fingertips. _One. Two. Three_.

* * *

"Expelliarmus!"

Clattering. Rustling. Smoke. Something wet and sticky and warm on one side, something dry and smooth and cold on the other.

Hermione thrashes after her wand, realizing too late that it has been ripped from her hands. She opens her eyes in a burst of adrenaline. The pain that greets this move almost sends her crashing back to the ground, but she scrambles against the slick surface fiercely enough to sit up and remain sitting. The dancing dark blobs before her eyes stop moving and resolve into people-shaped blobs.

"Who the hell are you and how did you get here?" Demands the nearest blob in a voice that almost - - almost - - compels Hermione to reply.

 _Oh, Merlin. No._

She blinks several times and finds that she is staring into the business end of a familiar wand. The wand's wielder vibrates with rage. No. Not rage. Battle fury. Barely suppressed, instinctive high alert. From six long years spent fighting on the front lines.

The vibrating blob resolves itself further into a woman, thirtyish, with a thick shock of dark hair pulled severely back and secured with a wide cloth band, preternatural blue eyes, little but long bone and hard sinew in a tweed skirt, white shirt and plaid vest. She advances silently, almost gliding across the tile floor. "Identify yourself or be cursed," says the woman in a deceptively soft, girlish voice. It is clear which option she prefers.

Hermione Granger stares down the raised wand of Minerva McGonagall and says, "My name is Jane Puckle. You are the Bearded Lady. Take me to Merkin the Magician at once."

* * *

 _The children join them for a holiday in Kathmandu. They leave Beppu two years younger than they arrive. They cross the steppes in a log cabin on chicken legs_.

Minerva sometimes allows herself to relive past adventures, to follow her memory across maps of the world. Generally, though, she looks forward to the future. If there is a secret to living happily ever after, it is to be prepared for ever after when it arrives.

Which is why, each morning after being kissed, but before the tea and biscuits, she stands near the center of that great, book-lined room and waits. Just waits. Were someone watching, the watcher might note that Minerva is in her dueling stance. Her feet are shoulder-width apart and she is balanced lightly on the balls of her feet. Her breathing is deep, relaxed, but controlled, as if the precise management of inhale and exhale is the focus of her being. Her hands hang at her sides, resolutely refraining from balling and unballing into fists.

* * *

She loves books. Each book is a perfect world. Beginning, middle, and end all exist together-whole. Life, despite metric fucktons of circumstantial evidence to the contrary, is not like that. So she waits ten minutes every day for the thing that may never happen.

* * *

 _When it happens, it happens in far less time._

Hermione emerges at a dead run from a mirage-shimmer of air just this side of Section 808.838 732. The distance from there to here is covered immediately and Hermione slams into her, pulling up at the last moment only enough to avoid toppling and breaking bones. In the moment between emergence and contact, Minerva can see Hermione's face, see eyes fully framed in crows' feet, lips in laugh lines, hair more salt than pepper. Minerva doesn't even have to look hard to know it by heart, because she has seen that face before in circumstances that have graven it in memory.

 _It takes seven years, nine months and a brace of days in remembered time and something over eleven in subjective time. Possibly three minutes as the library clock ticks._

"Oh, God," Hermione gasps in her arms, with a voice like steel wool and fingers like steel talons. "Oh, God," she repeats. Gulps for air. Tries to shudder down a discordant bark that breaks free anyway and vibrates against Minerva's skin even as Hermione kisses her at neck and jawline and cheek, "I am so sorry, Lintie. I am so, so sorry. Forgive me," she croaks. Then she asks again, whispering. "Forgive me."

* * *

A/N: 11/8/2010 - 8/11/2018. Forgive me.


	2. Cigam Tneicna - The One With The Wand

A/N: "Now" is a few years before the events of the previous chapter, in the quarters of the Headmistress, at Hogwarts. "Then" is AD 1951 in the Ministry of Magic, London.

* * *

Now

* * *

Sinking into Hermione is like sinking into still, smooth, steaming water. Minerva opens her eyes wide and gives herself to be pulled under. To be carried away. To be washed clean.

* * *

Hermione accepts the slight weight with a start of joy. Minerva moves inside her. The feeling is exciting, and awkward, and sweet. There is a yes, Hermione thinks, that is bigger than the ordinary yes. There is a yes whose dimensions can only be encompassed by faith. In time - - when her fingers clutch at Minerva's back, when the muscles of her thighs tense and lock in ecstatic focus, when the flood of her emotions loose themselves in a warm, wet gush - - that is the _yes_ Hermione offers up to this night.

"Yes. Oh my god, yes," she says, and means it.

Still, Minerva moves within her, the wand becoming warmer with each thrust. Hermione shivers as every last echoing rumble of pleasure is drawn from her jagged, sparking nerves.

* * *

Minerva's mind is purpose. Her pleasure is there, a wide, clear lake that buoys her, and there, just below the surface, she builds a model of Hermione. She can see all of her, somehow, both front and back, feel the way her body shapes the near space, and the shape of her mind.

 _Shapes of her mind._

 _The rhythmic patterns that come together to be the shapes of her mind and her magic._

 _Parts of Hermione so small they cease to be real, become waves, become theories the universe entertains about itself. No. Don't follow. Lost. Find Hermione and make her solid, substantial, more real than anything else. See her. Smell her. Hear her. Feel—oh—now—take it, Love. Be ruthless. Pull it out of me. Clamp those muscles tight around me and make me—oh god. Yours. Yours. Yours._

* * *

Then

* * *

So many questions are left unanswered.

But when Minerva tries to ask them, all Jane Puckle will say is, "Hush."

Minerva bristles as they march down a hall of black mirrors. She has summoned a phalanx of Aurors to quick-step the intruder away from the Ministry's most sensitive areas and toward the escape-proof rooms where Elphinstone Urquart is waiting with Albus Dumbledore, there to dig truth out of this wild-haired, arrogant witch.

Even in restraints, without wand, and locked in a _petrificus totalus_ , Jane Puckle is dangerous. For one thing, Minerva notes, she isn't unconscious. Most would be, but Puckle can still walk stiff-legged and rigid-backed, shoulders up, and blink at the world. This is not good. Someone who can apparate into the Sanctum—into the Time Lab itself-and start giving orders with that kind of self-assurance is a time bomb.

The secure area is cleverly disguised as a warren of ordinary offices with scarred oak paneling and musty plaster walls from which there is clearly no physical or metaphysical escape, with an entry foyer containing one broken chair and a water cooler. Minerva and the Aurors pause to aim the dismissal spells at the Dementor guards. Icy cold creeps over them. The four Dementors move away from the water cooler and waft forward in a manner somehow both unctuous and ravenous.

Before the assembled wands are fully raised, an ethereal otter springs from their midst and charges the Dementors with a full-throated battle cry that Minerva doubts any living otter could produce. Minerva is not sure it isn't "Alba gu bràth!"

The Dementors not only move aside, they flee down the halls and take themselves up the nearest ventilation duct so quickly it creates a backdraft that sweeps the vestibule as a cool, refreshing breeze. The otter returns to the body of Jane Puckle, who glances from the side of her eye at Minerva. That eye takes on a disturbingly Dumbledorean twinkle.

 _She's laughing at me_ , thinks Minerva.

* * *

Now

* * *

"Well, that settles the squashy wand question," Minerva says in a tone so clipped, it slips right into smug. "Who's laughing now, cheeky girl?"

Hermione hums a satisfied agreement. And yet, so many questions are left unanswered.

But when Hermione tries to ask them, all Minerva will say is, "Hush."

Hermione hushes. It is interesting to her that in all the silly romance novels she has ever read, so much attention and detail is put into the build-up, but nothing is ever written about the aftermath. Of course, in all the silly novels she has ever read, beds are conjured as needed by lovers in passionate embrace. The problem is that bricks, hastily transfigured by distracted witches, tend to go back to the business of being bricks at extremely inopportune moments. The sensible way to cavort in rustic places is to shrink a proper bed and transport it by mokeskin. Minerva, however, has her own methods.

So Hermione watches in sated silence as the tree branches straighten themselves into hat racks. Vines twist into hangers. Hedges solidify into wardrobes, clattering a bit as their doors bang shut. A bower becomes a canopy. Boulders become bedside tables. The sounds of a midsummer night fade and are replaced by the creakings of an ancient castle settling itself into sleep. One by one, the stars fizzle and fall from the sky.

Beltane-in-a-Box. Minerva picked it up half-price at Weasley Wizarding Wheezes Summer Silly Sale. The constellations are modified a bit, but it works out well, Hermione decides.

* * *

Then

* * *

The introduction to Elphinstone Urquart does rattle the redoubtable Mrs. Puckle, Minerva observes, but only for a moment. Dumbledore has, with an expressive finger-wiggle, released both spells and physical bonds, though he declines to return the wand. Jane moves as if to straighten her clothing, but, noticing that her clothing is still a garishly orange coverall, unzips the front closure instead.

Two Victorian wizards take an alarmed step backward.

The clothing underneath the coverall is no less alarming to them. Mrs. Puckle wears slacks, thick-soled leather boots, a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar and tucked into the slacks, the whole belted at the waist. She wears a watch on her wrist. And a ring on her finger. Instead of taking the seat offered her, she stands next to a desk and leans against it, arms folded across her chest. She checks the time on her watch and twitches a smile, briefly, before shaking her head as if to clear water from her ears.

"Mrs. Puckle," Dumbledore begins.

"Miss," She interrupts.

Dumbledore raises an eyebrow at the ring finger, but presses on without comment. "Miss Puckle."

"Call me Jane," She says.

 _She's trying to wrong-foot Albus Dumbledore_ , Minerva thinks.

Dumbledore is having none of it. "Jane," he tries again, "How have you come to be in the Department of Mysteries?"

"Alone," Jane says.

"Yes, alone—"

"Without McGonagall and Urquart," she presses.

"Ah. I can assure you, they are—"

"I came to check up on your dancing lessons. Mastered the time step yet?' She asks, shifts her weight on the desk so that one knee is swung up and over the corner, checks her watch again, then looks steadily into Dumbledore's eyes. And waits.

"If you know that, and if you know the other, say, code words you passed on to Miss McGonagall, then you must know that I am an accomplished legilimens," Dumbledore calmly states.

At the mention of code words, Urquart looks back and forth between Minerva and Dumbledore in the manner of a man hoping to be let in on a secret. He is ignored.

"Yes."

"And you therefore know that gazing into my eyes allows me to use this ability on you."

"Yes."

"I see."

"That would be the point, yes,"

With a nod of appreciation for the small witticism, Dumbledore moves closer to the desk, touches it with four cupped fingers, and says, "Please leave us," to the room in general.

Urquart's harrumph is only gearing up toward actual speech when Minerva blurts, "But—"

"Please," says Dumbledore.

Jane Puckle has the grace to look down at her own swinging foot so as not to witness the exchange. Or, Minerva thinks, looks down with the characteristic gesture of someone who has gotten her way and can afford to take her eyes off the opponent.

Elphinstone Urquart lays a possessive hand upon Minerva's elbow and steers her toward the exit, taking charge of something manageable to recover from the frank dismissal from his own duties by a school teacher. Minerva shakes him off her elbow as soon as the door closes behind them. She strides off.

 _Admit it_ , she privately admonishes herself, _you are stalking off. In a huff._

She slows. Allows Urquart to catch up and reclaim her elbow. "Do you think he's in danger?" She asks.

"Grindelwald is dead," he answers, "And the war is over. You worry too much, young lady. Besides," his hand grips her elbow just a bit harder, "If harm comes to him, it shall have been his own doing."

* * *

When they have gone, Dumbledore seats himself in the chair that had been provided for the intruder. "Curiouser and curiouser," he says.

"I think that's my line, Professor," she says, "Do you need to know my real name?"

"Well, I was wondering," he tells her, "How you came to be named after Minerva's childhood Kneazle."

Hermione erupts with laughter and snorts, "Oh Christ, I forgot!" And with that release, unfolds her arms, throws her head back, and relinquishes control of the situation to the russet-bearded wizard in the peach-and-heather suit-and-tie ensemble.

"From the beginning, then," he says.

* * *

Now

* * *

Minerva has forgotten enough of love already. The aroused mind does not create long-term memory. It creates many things, most of which take root in instinct. Minerva knows this from a lifetime of sexual activity now recallable only in part, and only in disconnected images. It is similar to how her feline mind stores information. So she quiets herself here in Hermione's arms and finds words to anchor feelings and sensations that are older than language.

 _Home. Hot. Happy._ Why do so many vital ideas begin with the sound of a human sigh?

Hermione picks up the wand, now detached and returned to its usual, though unusually sticky, form. She considers it. "Are we bonded for life now, like in the old legends?"

"There are protective charms that can now be performed, but nothing that cannot wait until morning. Commitment makes the spell work," Minerva takes the wand from Hermione's hand and places it on the bedside table. "No amount of spelling will make a commitment."

Hermione leans her head back on the pillow and stares up at the heavy canopy cloth. "Thank goodness for that," she says. "I don't think I could maintain faith in a world that contains mystical bonding dildos."

It is a glory to love someone who can surprise you, even if the surprise sometimes takes the form of astonishment at the absurd workings of her modern mind. Minerva smiles broadly at her own good fortune. _Thank you_ , she tells the universe, then adds, _and_ _it is about bloody time._

* * *

She watches through the witching hour, eyes vigilant for the hands of the clock. Seconds before the gentle midnight chimes, Minerva holds up her hands, palms out, as if in surrender. Her eyes close in concentration. No chime sounds. Nothing disturbs Hermione's deep sleep.

Now the firelight is a sullen reddish glow on an iron grate. It gives little warmth. Her pale skin glows red, like the coals.

The wand brushes Hermione's brow, just between the eyes.

 _Mihi_

She sings soundlessly, forming the word with her lips. It is accompanied by a gesture that sweeps an imaginary universe into her arms and ends with both hands balled in fists around the wand, describing a tight circle close to her chest-widdershins eight times and an equal number of times in the opposite direction, as if winding and unwinding a spool.

 _Mihi_

The wand brushes Hermione's chest, just between the breasts.

 _Mihi_

The word is hissed. The gesture is repeated.

The wand brushes Hermione's vagina, just between the thighs.

 _Mihi_

The word is spit. The gesture repeated, slowing in the final tight circle as knuckles go white on the wand.

"Accio," Minerva adds, in a whispering afterthought, mocks herself with a half-smile, and allows her shoulders to go slack and round with fatigue.


	3. Egufer dna Tcepsorp - TOWT Ring

A/N: "Now" is the night before the previous chapter, Midsummer, The Astronomy Tower, Hogwarts. "Then" is AD 1951, London.

* * *

Now

* * *

Hermione has never felt particularly safe on the astronomy tower. It cantilevers out from a cantilever, exposes itself to whiplash winds, and gives no promise of shelter. It exposes too much. Tonight, it shows the hills outside Hogsmeade scattered in flame. The Forbidden Forest seems to swarm with a thousand blast-ended skrewts as large fires and small, great bonfires and lanterns, torches and wands gather in a constellation around the centaur clearing. Drums beat a low and slow entrainment. She and Minerva lean against the high ramparts and watch as the rites of midsummer are celebrated all over the countryside.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" Hermione asks.

Minerva wraps them both up in her midnight blue cloak and rests her lips next to Hermione's ear. "What doesn't matter?"

"Midsummer or midwinter, in the clearing, in a tent or in a tower-that isn't the important bit."

"Likely not, no."

* * *

And she explodes. Her body collapses upon the rough stones because her legs are momentarily unable to support her weight. Minerva adjusts to keep the pressure between her legs constant, but Hermione's weight, the odd angle, and the sweaty, come-slick wetness between her legs make it impossible. Her mound throbs, untouched, cooled by an errant breeze and ready for more, even in the aftermath of fulfillment. The next thing Hermione is aware of is Minerva's cloak draped over her shivering body and the fact that someone is laughing aloud.

"You seem happy, as well," Minerva observes.

"Oh. God. Morphine," Hermione says.

Minerva affectionately swats her bare bottom and sets about locating Hermione's discarded clothing. "Hurt yourself?" She asks.

"Had help," Hermione protests. She has located a low buttress upon which to perch until her clothes are found.

Minerva offers trousers and bra, socks and a shoe. The shoe does not belong to Hermione. "And, Pet?" Minerva says.

Hermione looks up at her and squints. There is something in Minerva's hand, something proffered that is not a shoe. It is silver.

"Midsummer or midwinter, in the clearing, in a tent or in a tower. I would fuck ye in a boot," Minerva says, "I would fuck ye wi' a goot."

Hermione's slack-jawed astonishment inspires Minerva. Her accent suddenly goes verra, verra Burns.

"I will fuck ye in th' rain. In th' mirk. Oan a train. In a moturr. An' in a cabre."

"A what?"

"I wi' fuck ye in a box. I wi' fuck ye wi' a fox."

"Ow! Ow ow ow. Don't make me laugh. No laughing." Hermione holds a hand against her lower back and groans as involuntary giggles jiggle all her recently tenderized parts.

"I will fuck ye in a hoose. I will fuck ye wi' a moose. I will fuck ye haur and thaur. I wi' fuck ye anhywhaur."

Hermione holds her sides and bruised ribs together with her hands, but the laughter convulses her abused body, and she finds she must lay down on the cold paving of the astronomy tower floor, knees bent and slightly apart to relieve the pressure on her lumbar spine.

"Not right this minute, though," Minerva says, looming.

There is a sudden scuttling movement from the door leading downstairs, and the sound of feet making a fast retreat.

The two women go silent and still. Presently, Minerva says, "There are no students about."

"No current ones," observes Hermione.

"No one powerful enough to breach my wards,"

"One or two."

"Oh, my."

"Well, if you're going to go around declaiming your wedding vows from the top of the astronomy tower, this sort of thing will happen," Hermione says.

* * *

Then

* * *

"No," Jane Puckle says. Albus Dumbledore stands near the ragged edge of a crater blown into the fabric of London. There are many such about, many more than "Jane" realized as a schoolgirl reading about this war. She has decided, and Dumbledore has agreed, that the alias will do as well as any. She has no idea how he has explained this to Minerva. She suspects that he was not especially convincing, given the glower with which she is greeted when the girl crosses her path.

The girl. The damned girl.

"I insist."

Jane rubs the ring on the third finger of her left hand. "Absolutely not."

"She is the only one with the skills and talents to get you where you must go," Dumbledore states.

"That's as may be, but," she pauses and ponders the blast perimeter, knows that Dumbledore has taken her here for a reason, "In fact, that's the problem. It is almost universally true."

She feels him reaching out to her with his mind and she slams that door shut with a force that pulls him up short physically as well as mentally.

"You must trust me, Hermione."

"Must I?"

The bustle of the city around her makes her smile. Oh, it was a long, hard slog, but we did it, didn't we? The war lasted so much longer than the battles. They always do.

She turns to him squarely. "I do trust you, Albus. And I have told you everything you would want me to tell you, because I know you much better than you know me. And I know this situation much better than you know it. So you must trust me. We could go to Godric's Hollow and consult Bathilde, if you need reassurance. Or we can go down to Aberforth's basement and ask Ariana's portrait what she thinks."

She hears his sharp intake of breath. "Aberforth has a portrait of Ariana? But how?"

"He's a much more powerful wizard than is generally known."

Dumbledore whistles through his teeth.

"Goats notwithstanding."

"Your ring," Dumbledore says.

She does not bite.

"Is a navigation device."

She does not show shock.

"Or, rather, it is a homing device."


	4. Noitasrevnoc Rennid - TOWT Queen

A/N: "Now" is some hours before the events of the previous chapter. "Then" is AD 1951, London.

* * *

Now

* * *

"I'm sorry, I cannot marry you. I've been seeing Sir Cadogan and we have an understanding," Dumbledore says. In fact, his portrait says this.

Minerva puts the silver ring displayed on the palm of her hand back into its box and turns away from the wall. Whatever power he wielded over her in life, his egg-tempera doppelganger does not share. So she waits.

"I am not your best choice to consult in the matter of rings, Minerva," he says.

The office of the Headmistress is homelier than most people expect. She restrains the house-elves from cleaning, polishing, and arranging her belongings with geometric precision. They respond, in some unexplored way, to the personality and character of those they choose to serve. So she fights this battle with herself, really. One must leave a—well—a kind of psychological front step that other human beings feel comfortable approaching. So the office is lived-in, slightly, with upholstered chairs that no teenager will be afraid of ruining with the dusty seat of his dungarees. Open books are left on tables here and there. Just so.

She wonders if she is actually fooling anybody.

"No good comes of enchanted jewelry."

"Ask Katie Bell," Minerva concedes.

"Ask Frodo Baggins," Dumbledore adds.

"Will you be serious?" She shouts at the animated portrait of a long-dead 140-year-old wizard wearing lavender robes.

"Rings are dangerous things."

"You owe me, you manipulative old—"

"Ring-a-ding-ding."

"Albus!"

"I'm sorry, my dear. I am currently dividing my attention between more than one portrait. The immediate problem before me is a complex one. You were, I believe, attempting to solicit my magical wisdom for help creating something somewhat sneaky."

"Something somewhat sneaky? Albus, I have always wondered: however did you avoid being assigned to Slytherin House?"

"I cheated," he says. "I'm glad we had this little talk. Been meaning to get that off my chest for decades. And now, for my sins—"

She turns his face to the wall as he croons through three verses of "God Save the Queen".

* * *

Then

* * *

Jane Puckle's excursions into postwar muggle London are strictly supervised. She has a flat within the Ministry itself, from which she can more efficiently direct Operation Now and Then, which is what they call the push to create time-turner technology in secret, without the knowledge of any other wizarding community, in the magical version of a Cold War arms race.

This project has been pried free from the supervision of Elphinstone Urquart and handed to her, along with certain resources and staff. This includes the junior researcher, Minerva McGonagall.

"It is your particular assignment, Miss McGonagall, to acquaint me with recent events," Jane tells the girl, who has mastered the art of sitting at attention, and who now does so across an antique desk from her new Boss.

"Why?" She asks.

"Not my idea," Jane admits, without rancor or venom. Barely suppressed exasperation, maybe.

"Why?" Minerva asks.

"I suspect your recent service at the International Wizengamot has something to do with it," Jane tells her. "Your magical gifts. Your extremely convenient availability and willingness to do almost anything Albus Dumbledore tells you to do."

"Asks," Minerva says.

"What?"

"Asks. He always asks."

"Certain affinities he senses in our minds," Jane adds.

"Such as?"

Jane writes notes by hand on a parchment. She seems engrossed in her task. Minerva tries again.

"Do you like Quidditch?"

"Hate it. Barely competent on a broomstick."

"Do you play chess?"

"You would beat me."

"How do you know that?"

* * *

Jane stops writing and leans back in her chair. She puts her feet up on her desk and crosses them at the ankle, hands joined behind her head. Minerva has never seen a woman do that. But then, even though most women wore trousers for their war work, and many female film stars affect the look, most women Minerva knows still wear the type of skirt that would make such a gesture imprudent in the extreme. Jane Puckle does not. She wears trousers and a shirt such as the male muggles of London wear to coax small tomatoes from small patches of scorched dirt on a Saturday afternoon.

This would be practical, for a woman apparently given to popping back and forth through time.

Oh, Urquart and Dumbledore pretend that Jane Puckle is a contemporary recently returned from service in India, but Minerva is not fooled. She isn't that old, for one. Old, yes. Maybe even the far side of forty. Not old enough to have really been immersed in the Raj. Age may not tell on some witches and wizards, if one relies on looks alone, but there are other clues. Jane Puckle smells fertile.

"What did Dumbledore tell you about me?" Jane asks.

"That you named my cat," Minerva answers. "Is that true?"

"No idea," Jane answers. It has the ring of truth to it, and it confirms Minerva's suspicions. The confirmation does not release the tension in Minerva's spine in the slightest degree.

"Miss Puckle," Minerva says in deliberately audible quotes. "If you can travel in time, and I know that you can, why in the name of all that's holy did you not go to a time and place where you might have—have—prevented this monstrous thing? Millions have died. Millions!" She leans forward in her chair and her words knock Jane Puckle's feet right off the oak desk and go on to smack the smug right off her face.

"I have no idea," Jane answers.

* * *

Now

* * *

"Useless!" Minerva is saying. The food at the Three Broomsticks has improved since Babette took over the kitchen. The tables are filled with happy diners and Minerva must use her teacher-voice to be heard above the convivial din. She has had the most confounding day, and she'd like to know what Harry makes of it. "All afternoon, he'd do nothing but sing 'God Save the Queen' and giggle," she says, "Utterly bloody useless."

"What were you trying to discuss with him?" Ginny asks. She suspects something. The set of her shoulders suggests predation.

 _Be careful what you wish for, wee clever Weasley,_ Minerva thinks. _You may get it._

* * *

It is much later that evening when Minerva, distracted and giddy with anticipation, tells Hermione "I find, however, that I am not willing to share you, not even in the context of ritual," her hands barely brush across Hermione's breast as eager fingers work their way down, "Selfish old witch that I am."


	5. Sehctiw Mrahc Ot Syaw Efas-Liaf Evlewt

A/N: AD 1951 London

Warning: This chapter features much adult content, but no sex. At some point, girlfriends had to get some work done.

* * *

#12

* * *

Morning, and her staff and those who have drifted in – the curious, the hostile, the suspicious, the bored – are gathered in the small lecture hall. Jane walks full-speed into the room, giving the impression that, had there been stairs, she would have been taking them two at a time. She's a juggernaut of tweed trousers and black boots and turned-up sleeves that comes to rest front and center, pivots to survey the expectant faces, and says, "Most of what you think you know is wrong."

"No shite," says Minerva. And Jane Puckle laughs.

* * *

#11

* * *

Minerva loves Mondays.

"Taos," Jane announces. The charmed chalk writes furiously behind her as she talks, explains, gestures, acts out, uses her wand to demonstrate points and principles and anything they haven't seen before. There is always a show on Monday, followed by reading. Tuesday is something called brainstorming, then assignments. Wednesday is all about the laboratory and getting the right materials and solving the problems. Thursday is more of the same, with notes on results. Friday they are all back in the hall, reporting progress and failures.

Each day of the week has its own pleasure, but Monday is always about something new, something important, something almost no one else knows.

Except Minerva, sometimes, because she has a secret. Some of what Jane Puckle is teaching corresponds neatly to letters her world-traveling father has sent. She devours all the letters she hasn't bothered to read yet, starts looking for that owl post at dawn, and gradually begins to reply, then to write un-owed letters filled with questions. She finds ways to get them to a wizard who has wandered off the map, and feels triumph when his answers find their way home. It pleases him, he says, to have his Moggy with him again, even in the form of words on paper. He knows about her work at the Ministry, though the Unspeakable nature of her position must remain an assumption on his part. Minerva keeps secrets.

That she never once mentions Jane Puckle to him is not something she thinks about.

But she loves Mondays.

* * *

#10

* * *

Minerva is the first to notice the books. Jane carries books in her handbag like most witches carry lipstick and extra sickles. Minerva wonders that there is a single volume left in the Ministry's library. And she must read them quickly, because they are seldom in Jane's possession for more than twenty-four hours.

It is while Jane rearranges the hall into what she calls a "think tank" (and looks to Minerva like a classroom for small children) when Minerva finds her opening.

"Shall I order shelves for the books?" Minerva asks.

Jane grunts, arranging seats and chalkboard the old-fashioned way, with muscle and sweat. "If you think they might benefit from some reference volumes, please do," she answers, then murmurs, "Shame there is no charm to make furniture intelligently arrange itself."

She is sleeveless today. Hers is not an athletic body. But there is a womanly solidity to her frame and limbs, a pleasing proportion. She is strong, and not afraid of physical labor, and quite expectant that she will open any door she encounters, manage her own chairs, make her own pot of tea and require everyone else to do the same. She has none of that helplessness Minerva and all her cohort are supposed to feign now that Johnny has come marching home. So many Johnnies, if they have come marching home, have done so because Minerva has carried them the first thousand yards.

And then she notices that Jane has said, "…they might benefit."

They.

Clearly, she expects that no one currently in this room might need to consult a reference with any frequency. And the fact that Minerva has noticed this, and that it has somehow pleased her, is enough to blacken her mood.

"Or not," Jane says, tilting her head and smiling in that coaxing way older women have when they are trying to get you to cheer up, confide, or confess.

"If you are the expert in these matters," Minerva snaps, "Then why do you need to read all those books?"

Jane shrugs. "Boredom, mostly."

"You haven't enough to do?"

"You all go home at night, you know," she answers. Then she turns away.

And Minerva knows that Jane has not expected to reveal so much.

"Have you ever written a book?" Minerva asks.

Jane stops her attempts to clear an aisle through the piled desks. Hesitates. Resumes the clearing."Yes," she says, finally. "Not a highly significant one."

"On what topic?"

Jane's head tilts this way, then that, then this. She may be surveying her handiwork. Or perhaps not. "Listen, my bright and brooding bairn," Jane says briskly, "The books I desperately need are not in the Ministry library."

"Shall I owl a list to Hogwarts?" Minerva asks.

"Dumbledore has taken care of all that," she answers.

"Has he?"

Jane plunges through Minerva's ice-water tones, "No, Minerva, the books I need are in muggle libraries. Carefully guarded ones, at that."

"Well, I might go to a muggle library, I suppose, with some preparation."

"You might, the public ones, with lots of preparation," Jane agrees, "But you will never gain entry to the ones I need. I'll get us in."

"Us? I don't know that the Ministry would agree to-"

"Exactly. Which is why you need to get us out. Out of the Department of Mysteries, at least. At night."

"Sneak out?" It is only then that Minerva notices the muffliato charm that has been expertly cast about them. When did that happen?

"Covert operations, McGonagall."

"And what makes you think I will assist in this? What makes you think I won't go tell Urquart this minute?"

Jane rolls her eyes and, to Minerva's great annoyance, chuckles. "Because," she says, as if to a child, "We are going to the lie-brare-ree, Minerva. Library. One you have never seen before. With books you have never read, all waiting for us to liberate them at great risk to our personal well-being."

 _Well, damn the witch,_ Minerva thinks. _She's got me there._

* * *

#9

* * *

"Uluru," says Jane. And it is the swish of fabric as she paces, her feet keeping time with the pace of her thoughts, until she is breathless. To Minerva, it is a lot of rot about Imperialism as well, but that only makes her compose arguments in her mind, taking each of Jane's assertions point by point. She says nothing, of course. That would be quite off-topic. But she lets herself indulge a bit at night, when she is too restless to sleep, and it is just Minerva alone with a conjuring of Jane in a room made of ideas.

* * *

#8

* * *

"Sacsayhuamán," Jane says. Then she has to say it again, cause it to be written on the board, slowly, and then say it five or six more times. Minerva clutches her workstation (which looks very much like a desk to her) until she is white-knuckled from the effort it takes to not grab her wand and curse these numpties into next week. Then again, if she could do that, she could declare victory and go get pissed at the Leaky. _Why not,_ thinks Minerva. _Perfectly valid career plan._

* * *

#7

* * *

"Chandraguthi." Jane says the word as if she were officiating at a funeral. The tale that follows is an elegy.

Minerva thinks it is the personal stories, when Jane speaks of her own time spent in these places, that truly teach.

What is it like to follow the path of knowledge so fearlessly? What must it be like, to know nearly everyone in the world? To like many of them? To forgive most of them? To turn tragedy into passion? To laugh at it? To weep for the wasted lives of strangers in front of a room full of strangers without losing one's thread, or dignity, or intelligence?

Minerva, who finds it increasingly difficult to leave her flat each morning, writes these questions down. Then she scratches them out. Minerva is a scientist, as Jane has described the concept, with thesis, and hypothesis, and a logical journey from one to the other, that is as much adventure as Minerva will ever need.

* * *

#6

* * *

"Tunguska? Anyone?"

Blank stares.

Jane has a staff of four, not including herself. But there are more than twenty-five people in this room waiting to hear all the top-secret details of a project they are not connected to, and the Ministry isn't really different any time in the future, either, so Jane presses on.

"Right," she says, when all are placed around the perimeter and she paces the center. "Tunguska. What goes wrong?"

They look at each other, nervously, to see if their fellows have a clue. And then they look at her as if she were a madwoman. All right—

"Accio atlas," she says, and opens it to the correct page. But instead of a crater, the magically magnified map shows a stretch of forest and some place names.

"Tungaska exploded in 1908. The muggles are still baffled," Jane tells them.

Nervous throat clearing. No one quite meets her eyes.

And then the light dawns.

"Bloody hell!" She says. And now their suspicion turns to outright shock. "You," she points at a clerk in the back, "How long does it take to get an owl to Siberia?"

It is Minerva's head that pops up first. Of course. "Blowback?" She asks.

The Time Team members nod, understanding the implications, and the others crowd in to ask them questions.

A roundish young man assigned to the Committee for Floo Powder Research answers. "Two weeks," he says, "Minimum, with good coordinates, if it could be done," he says.

Jane's question must be obvious from the expression on her face because the lad follows up with, "No fly/no floo zone. I suspect that's where they have their own Now and Then—"

Jane interrupts, "Now you _know_ that's where they have it. Good man."

He goes pink from the praise.

"Urquart!" She calls, knowing that the manager of most in this room is lurking just out of sight, "We need you!"

That gets him into the room fast, and with his head up instead of his guard up. When he rounds the corner, all the young wizards start talking at once, but it is Minerva who gets his attention by approaching him, much faster and closer than any young man would dare. "Miss Puckle has knowledge of a timeline with a potential retroactive detonation – a blowback – at the Russian facility in Tungaska," she tells him.

"Where's the horizon?" He asks.

"Aught-eight," says Minerva, and Jane lets her explain, lets all of her young people prime the Ministry apparatus for action. They know the territory.

* * *

#5

* * *

"Kathmandu," Jane says, and spends the next two hours making science into art. It is beautiful, when practiced right. This is something Minerva has never thought of before. She knows that she has talent. It comes naturally to her. Dumbledore says she has skills, but as far as Minerva can see, all her skills are of the killing or carnal kind. She can rip life from a body. She can rip pleasure from it as well. They are fundamentally the same. They _feel_ fundamentally the same. And that makes everything nothing, doesn't it? What kind of order exists in that? What logic? Poetry? Art?

Future?

* * *

The girl is still staring at her blank parchment, quill untouched, when everyone else has gone. Hermione sits down next to her. Minerva does not seem to be aware of her. Here is the blank face that, somewhere in another lifetime, Hermione Granger saw staring out from a photograph on a Ministry dossier. The universe shifts a bit. Jane Puckle and Hermione Granger have been drifting, ever so subtly, apart. And here, now, they slam back together.

This is her Minerva. This one is that one. Here, Hermione knows that she-not Albus Dumbledore, not Magnus McGonagall, not Elphinstone Urquart-has taken the wheel on this part of the road that leads from Minerva the Casualty of War to Minerva M.F. McGonagall, Lioness of Gryffindor.

 _And was it me all along? How could it be? Merlin's left nut ground up with honey on whole wheat toast this makes my head hurt. You might have casually dropped this in to one of our conversations at any point, you know. You would have, wouldn't you?_

She waves a hand under Minerva's face to get her attention. Faster than Hermione can track the movement, Minerva's hand snatches her forearm. She holds it still in her astonishingly strong grip. Hermione tries to pull away, but she can't. And, of course, in her moment of inattention, she has lost the glamour that covers the scar.

Minerva runs a thumb over it, the magical wounds still livid after all these years, the letters legible.

 _Mudblood_ , it says.

* * *

#4

Minerva recognizes the person sitting next to her.

"Jane," Minerva says.

Jane closes her eyes without answering.

"Jane!"

"I am right here, Minerva," Jane whispers.

"Who did this to you?"

"Approximately the same ones who did this to you, Love."

Minerva nods.

"We shall just keep living and the devil take them all," Jane says.

"Before breakfast so there's more porridge for us," Minerva answers.

* * *

#3

* * *

"Beppu!" Jane announces on the following Monday.

"Gesundheit!" Replies a wit from the back of the room.

And the weeks pass.

* * *

#2

* * *

They do go home at night and leave her alone. Hermione isn't sure how she feels about this. She wishes Minerva were here to talk with. The one who is/was/shall be her wife, or even the dour rough draft who ghosts through the office all day, not quite connecting with anyone or anything, challenging all who come too close.

Well. There is a name for this, and treatments for it, but they are all a long way off in that future she may never see again, the one that holds her children and her friends and her babies and Rose and Hugo. Hmm, clearly there is a theme developing in this train of thought. The possibility of never seeing the children again is a terror so deep it cannot be faced by the light of day. Or at night, for that matter.

Be practical.

This is the here and now. Stray pieces of life's puzzle have begun to slide into place with a satisfying _click._ Now would not be a good time to succumb to thinking either wishful or woeful. Now would be a good time to think logically in order to see past extraneous detail.

Because if this is how it was all supposed to happen, Minerva is going to have some serious explaining to do.

Right now, Minerva has some healing to do. So shattered. And young, in spite of her hellish years. The children, if she returns to them-when she returns to them-will not know she left. But Minerva will know she was here.

Even if she does, somehow, forget to mention it.

If she had only said something, warned her, Hermione could have-

 _Click._

Oh.

Yowling, familiar yowling, from outside the door. She flings herself into a robe, pauses to consult the modified sneakoscope she's mounted in the dark wood door, then opens so that Minerva McGonagall can dart past Hermione's ankles and into the flat.

Minerva's transfiguration happens more quickly than Hermione has ever seen it. "Whiskey," she says. "I'm sorry if I've startled you. But whiskey."

She pours Minerva the drink. The flat is tiny, just two rooms, and the chairs were clearly not designed for sitting. So Minerva drains her drink from a standing start, then says, "Gone. All of them."

Hermione pours herself a whiskey.

"Paradox trigger?" She asks, guns the shot, braces herself. Cause and effect can get confused where time travel is involved. Heroes become villains.

"No, nothing like that. We just couldn't get a squadron there in time. Dumbledore mobilized everyone he could, mind, on your word alone. Anyone who might be able to get there by any method," she trails off.

"Seven hundred and seventy square miles," Hermione says.

Minerva nods. "Two muggle deaths."

"And three hundred seventy-two wizards and witches. The brightest minds of a generation."

Hermione pours.

They toast. They drink.

* * *

#1

* * *

"Minerva," Hermione says after the fire has died down in her esophagus, "I need to get the hell out of this building. Let's go steal some books."


	6. Gniraelc Eht - The One With The Bodley

A/N: For owlofathena

* * *

A Moderate Amount of Whiskey Later

* * *

"But you've a Trace on you," Minerva tells her.

"No, I don't."

"Elphinstone Urquart cast it himself. He told me."

"He is mistaken. See for yourself." She holds her hands out to her sides. Minerva's wand sweeps up one side of her and down the other.

"Anything?"

"No."

"I'm good with memory charms," Hermione tells her.

"Pardon?"

"I'm good with memory charms,"

"Could you repeat that?"

"I've got a wicked reducto, Laird Smarty McSmart-Pants."

"No need for cheek," Minerva says, and her lips make the prim little line that haunts the exam-day nightmares of generation after generation.

"Be assured that I am unencumbered by security spells at this time. Now, I know you have given this some thought. What is our plan?"

"Have you any animagus skills?"

"None whatever."

"Eliminating the possibility that you actually _were_ my cat. No brewed Polyjuice potion?"

"Fresh out."

"Why is this funny?"

"Tell you later."

"You aren't making this easy for me, are you?"

"You're playing fair, McGonagall. You're thinking like a clerk."

"I am a clerk."

The vehemence with which Hermione shakes her head undermines her efforts to wrestle her curls into a tight bun. "You," she says around a mouth full of hair grips, "Are a soldier."

"That's…that's…how do you know that?"

"I'm quite clever."

And there goes the eyebrow. This is the first time Hermione has seen this most characteristic expression on the young face. She wonders if she has witnessed the birth of a legend. Like Elvis' first swivel.

"Perhaps it takes a thief to catch a thief?" Minerva ventures.

"Mmm. Possibly."

Minerva adjusts the wide cloth band that holds back her own perfectly behaved hair, which is how Hermione knows that her bun efforts have been less than effective. Minerva's focus, however, is somewhere beyond the small flat, and she clasps her hands behind her back as she crosses the room in two long strides, turns, and crosses back. She stops. "Where are we going?" She asks.

"Oxford, of course."

"Well! Is that all? And here I feared this might be difficult."

"And Birmingham."

"Birmingham?"

"Birmingham."

"And you don't fly."

"McGonagall, you get us out. I'll get us there."

"We shall see, Puckle." Minerva takes a deep breath and exhales, as if settling on an option. "Get your handbag."

"On my bedside table. Anything else?"

"Perhaps trousers? Or are you too clever for clothing?"

"No need for cheek."

Hermione changes her clothing. She changes her nightie into a black jumper and black knit pants. She changes her slippers into crepe-soled canvas. She changes the robe into a warm cloak. When she has finished changing, she finds that Minerva has ripped the lining out of her handbag.

"Hey! Dumbledore gave me that."

"Mokeskin, I presume."

"Well—"

"I'll need your leather belt, and something to sew with, needle and thread. Or," Minerva reaches out and plucks a wiry hair from Hermione's head.

"Ow!"

"Quite the soldier, then. By the way," The pacing stops. "How are you at seasickness charms?"

* * *

In a hut mounted on chicken feet, or in a pouch affixed to a cat's collar?

Thestral-back or dragon-back?

Towed by a Giant Squid? Towing a Giant Death Eater?

Hermione believes that if she ever does write another book, it should be a scholarly comparison of history's most horrid transportation options.

* * *

1951 is deserted at night. Or, at least, the part of 1951 that occurs in London is deserted. The cat lets Hermione out of the bag behind the shelter of a blue police box. It is an awkward entrance, with some tripping that ends with Hermione's tailbone on the hard cobbles. She looks at Minerva's reflective eyes, looks at the police box, and says, "If only it were that easy."

* * *

"This is a bomb crater."

"Well spotted. Open the mokeskin and hold it at arm's length away from your body, would you?"

"Wh—"

There is the sensation of an egg cracking upon Minerva's head, and then of egg dripping down her face.

"Accio, _Home Chat_!" Jane says. This is, without a doubt, the last thing Minerva imagines Jane might ever say.

It starts as a fluttering whisper and becomes something like the sound of every pigeon in St. Paul's taking wing at once. "Erm, Jane?"

An amorphous black cloud blots out the night sky. "Watch yourself," Jane shouts into the whirlwind. Feet planted firmly in the scorched earth, she sends a shield charm from the tip of her wand. It wraps around them both, allowing only enough room for Minerva to thrust the mokeskin pouch beyond the protective barrier.

Minerva braces herself against Jane's sturdy back and strains to keep her arm stiff while the flapping flock of periodicals envelopes both witches in inky blackness. The magazines form a kind of funnel that comes to a narrow point before diving into the mokeskin. Minerva's last-second lifting charm only just keeps the force from ripping her arm from the socket.

Then, suddenly, the last of the periodicals disappears into the pouch, which makes a slurping sound before closing itself up. Minerva's ears pop. Stray bits of paper settle to earth about them as Jane lowers the shield. Minerva tucks the laden pouch away in her coat. Jane bends to retrieve a torn page.

"Apparently," Jane says, eyeing the thing in her hand as one might a soiled handkerchief found in the pocket of a borrowed jumper, "There really is a Star pattern for Quantum Electrodynamics."

* * *

"Oh, my," says Minerva. She gapes, truly gapes, at a long, long, double-height tunnel of books. Even by wandlight, the dark wood gleams. Occasional glints of gold-leaf lettering sparkle upon the spines. Hermione is glad of the low light. She can't make herself stop grinning. Minerva's fingertips, gently extended toward the nearest shelf, are a supplication.

"Don't touch," Hermione whispers. "Not yet."

The incantation is performed while kneeling:

 _Do fidem me nullum librum vel instrumentum aliamve quam rem ad bibliothecam pertinentem, vel ibi custodiae causa depositam, aut e bibliotheca sublaturum esse, aut foedaturum deformaturum aliove quo modo laesurum…_

* * *

"Open," Hermione says.

Minerva lowers the mokeskin to the floor and loosens the drawstring she has fashioned from Hermione's hair.

"Xeros Grafica," Hermione says, as her wand gently draws out the first magazine. Other magazines follow, single file, in a gracefully sinuous line, until the first one reaches the last book. There, it hovers. A flash of light moves out from the magazine, to the book, and back to the magazine again.

It makes Minerva blink and shade her eyes with one hand.

This display is repeated for each pairing of book and magazine. Each magazine returns to the pouch as the process is complete, slowly, as if the thin sheets of paper are made thick. Gravid. They float down into the little pouch, their former frenzied free-for-all now solemn procession.

It takes over an hour to complete. When the last one is tucked neatly away, Hermione puts her hand on Minerva's elbow and steers her toward an arched window.

"Thank you," she tells the books, all quietly undisturbed on their shelves, all settled in to sleep the remainder of the night.

* * *

 _Whoop! Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!_

The low brick Birmingham building that houses records for Operation Tube Alloys does not inspire awe. It is, if such a thing is possible, extremely banal: covered in metal desks that are in turn covered in cigarette ash. Getting in is easy. Getting top-secret documents to copy themselves onto pages intended for knitting patterns is easy. Getting out is currently impossible.

It is a length of silk thread – a nearly invisible filament strung across a threshold at about four inches above the floor – that trips the toggle switch that activates the submarine dive-warning horns that drive two witches into a tiny mokeskin pouch along with a largish lump of smelly pulp paper.

Jane Puckle leans against a pile of magazines in the dark. Minerva McGonagall sits beside her, burning so much adrenaline that the trembling threatens to become levitation, and trying not to let the blaring of sirens or the angry voices of armed men take over her central nervous system. She's in a hole. There are German voices outside. It makes not a bit of difference to her ignited brain that the Germans are British citizens now, or that the men have no way of gaining access to the folded pocket of space-time she inhabits.

Jane gently eases her down, uses the flat of her hand to guide Minerva's head to lay itself upon a soft lap. The sound-damping spell Jane has cast blunts the worst of the alarm. And when Minerva finally allows herself to lie down on the softish pile of magazines, Jane lays a gentle hand over Minerva's upturned ear to shut out the rest of the noise.

Minerva can feel her pulse race where Jane's hand brushes her temple. Her heart struggles to leap out of her chest. And strong fingers stroke the hair away from her forehead, even when there is no hair on the forehead left to stroke. The thigh serving as her pillow rises and falls, barely perceptible, in time with Jane's slow and steady breathing.

 _So tired_ , Minerva thinks. _Must not sleep._ Minerva continues to think some version of this right up until the moment when Jane gently shakes her awake.

"All clear, Doll," Jane murmurs. "Time to get this loot back to the hideout."

Minerva lies silent while her sharpened senses strain for the least sign of danger. But everything tells her that she is in an empty room.

Stillness. Quiet.

Stillness. Quiet. Softness.

Quiet. Softness. Warmth.

Softness. Warmth. Fear.

Warmth. Fear. Safety.

Her hand has encountered a breast, and has not been smacked away. She has Jane in her grasp next instant, and with her unerring instinct for these things, she has her lips on Jane's mouth soon after.

Jane's gasp allows Minerva entry.

Jane's palm, pressed firmly against Minerva's breast bone, sends her sharply away.

For a moment, Minerva does not understand what has happened.

Then, she does.

* * *

"No, no, no, no, no, Minerva. We are not doing this," Hermione grunts through gritted teeth. Minerva's blind, instinctive, dangerously unfocused apparation is overpowered by Hermione's anchoring spell and no small amount of sheer physical strength. Hermione directs them, together, first out of the bag and then out of Birmingham.

Minerva is struggling to free herself from Hermione's straight-jacketing hold. She is wild-eyed and increasingly violent, and Hermione is afraid she will truly lose control, or worse, transfigure and take off where Hermione cannot follow. Which, Hermione notes, would be straight through the predatory tree roots of the Forest of Dean.

"Minerva!" Hermione commands.

Minerva freezes. She gasps like a sprinter. Her expression is murder.

Hermione is about to relax her grip when Minerva, sensing the opportunity, tries to apparate.

It takes all of Hermione's strength to keep Minerva McGonagall anchored in the material plane.

"Stop, Minerva! Stop, or you'll splinch."

"Then I splinch," Minerva spits, and actually forces her body to disincorporate with Hermione's power still anchoring portions of it in place.

Hermione lets go at the last moment.

"Damn," she says. Then she makes sure the library is secure in the pocket of the robe, which has decided that it wants to be a robe again. She takes her wand from that pocket, grips it firmly, and tells it, "Follow that witch."

Which, to no great surprise, brings her into the library at McGonagall Manor. Minerva is crouched on the floor, partly kneeling and partly flung against the stacks, taking great heaving draughts of air. Her wand is in her fist and her fist is held over her heart, as if it might be contained within her by force.

White-hot rage all but lifts Minerva from the floor and Hermione once again finds herself staring down the business end of a familiar wand.

"How did you get past the wards?" Minerva demands. Before Hermione can think up an answer, Minerva bellows, "How the HELL did you get past the wards?"

"I, um—"

"FLORA!"

The house elf is there. She places herself directly between Minerva and Hermione, and stretches a fragile-looking arm out and up, until she is showing a wrinkled palm to Hermione's face. This is as much warning as a house-elf ever gives. There are no second chances.

Then she cants her head, blinks once, blinks twice, and turns her head to another angle. Hermione has never seen a more perfect picture of astonishment.

 _Interesting_ , she thinks _. I am still mistress of this house, and Flora is slave to any mistress of this house. The manor knows it. So must she._

"Flora," Hermione says, slowly and carefully, not taking her eyes off Minerva's wand, "Minerva and I are going to have a talk, and then Minerva is going to need some cocoa. I vow to keep her safe. Please see to the cocoa."

"Y-yes, M-m-m," Flora says. She wrings her hands on the dishtowel she wears as an apron. Then she is gone.

Minerva throws both hands up into the air, tossing wand to the floor while she is at it, and sinks back down to rest against the books, still breathless. It is a gesture that eloquently combines surrender and surliness.

"Minerva, we are not going to do this," Hermione repeats.

Minerva responds by burying her face in her hands. "I'm, I'm, I'm," she says, unable to fit a descriptor to her state of being.

"Don't you dare apologize to me, Minerva McGonagall. Don't you dare."

"I've stopped doing what we shan't do! Why haven't you gone away?"

"No, it isn't that thing that we're not going to do. Well, all right, it is that thing that we're not going to do. But that thing isn't this thing. Oh, damn and blast."

Hermione scratches the place on her head where a single remaining pin clings stubbornly to a ringlet.

"I'm going to try that one again. Right. The thing we are not going to do is the thing where you get all awkward and ashamed about kissing me so that our brilliant working relationship is ruined and it takes a tediously long time to get you all put right again."

Minerva flinches as Hermione levers herself down to the hard floor.

"Stupid waste of time, that," Hermione says. "Listen. We've just burglarized the Bodleian, stolen the crown's nuclear secrets, and survived a terrifying encounter with German physicists and their armed thugs. Of course you kissed me. Passionate lovemaking is really the only reasonable reaction to these events."

Minerva looks askance. Minerva looks several consecutive askances.

"We just aren't going to," Hermione concludes.

"You are married," Minerva says.

"No. Yes. Look, the point is, I am your boss. I am your teacher. I am so much more powerful than you are, it isn't fair."

"You think so?"

"Not magical power, Minerva. Human power. Experience. Here, think about it. What have I just done to your self-esteem?"

"My what?"

"How has this made you feel about yourself?"

Minerva thinks about this for at least fifteen seconds. "I want to curl up in a wee ball and die," Minerva says.

"Exactly. And do you think there is anything _you_ could do to _me_ that would make me feel that way about myself? Anything at all?"

"I know you couldn't, of course you don't," she bites off her response as the real answer takes her by surprise, "I certainly hope not."

"Aye, there's my Lintie," Hermione says, pulling herself to her knees with a faint creaking of joints, "And you were about to tell me that I don't care about you. It's as well you didn't, because I'm too knackered to bash you properly." She forces herself the rest of the way up, groans, and stamps her right foot because it has fallen asleep. "I'm here, aren't I? I'm here having this horrible conversation and I don't have to be. I care. But, but," she pauses to get control of her thoughts, "But there is a power that youth knows not. You haven't got it yet and I have, and that makes you far too easy to manipulate."

"I'm not feeling especially buoyed by this pep talk," Minerva observes.

"Are so," Hermione says. _Proving my point exactly_.

"When do I get my cocoa?" Minerva asks.


	7. Ega Reh fo Hctiw Tsethgirb Eht-TOWT Duel

**A/N: Professional stunt testicles were employed in the making of this fanfiction. Do not try this at home.**

* * *

 _Department of Mysteries: Unlikely Weather Disturbances Division_

 _No One Admitted Without Appointment. For Appointments, Apply Within._ _We Apologise for the Inconvenience._

* * *

"He wants to what?"

"Dance. Like them," Minerva waves an arm wildly about, which does not draw the slightest attention from anyone in the smoky basement, because they are all waving their arms wildly about. Legs, too, plus heads and bums and each other.

The jazz would be too loud for conversation, but Hooch has cast a bit of a buffer about them. Minerva is fascinated by the dancers. The more energetic the dance, the more it expands to fill the available space.

"Has he gone mad?" Hooch asks. She slurps her drink and grins her feral grin, "Barmy? Bonkers? Round the bend? Loony?"

"All of the above," Minerva nods, making a little toast with the alcohol left in her glass before draining it.

"And this is what has driven you to look me up after all these years?"

"Please remind yourself that I am the one who extended the invitation to you, Mara."

"Yes, well, busy professional athlete and all that," Hooch leans back in her chair and pulls a face, daring Minerva to burst her bravada.

The eyebrow goes up. Hooch laughs so hard that the chair goes over.

"In fact," Minerva tells her, successfully pretending that she has not noticed Hooch's acrobatic tumble, "It was my supervisor's idea."

"What? Urquart?"

"No," Minerva shakes her head. The music has gone so loud that she has to raise her voice to be heard. "She merely said I was working too hard and should go find friends my own age." _And you are one of the few left alive._

"She?" Hooch straddles her chair backward and leans forward, elbows on the sticky wood table. "Who is _She_?"

"Excellent question," Minerva says.

* * *

"Dueling drills?"

"Yes. No witches welcome, of course."

"Now we're talking about Elphinstone Urquart."

"What gave it away?"

"And why are the wizard 'clerks' at the Department of Unlikely Weather Disturbances having dueling drills?"

"I can't tell you."

"You can't tell me why there are dueling drills involved in the job you can't tell me about?"

"I can't tell you that, either." Minerva shrugs, not quite apologetically. Hooch has a job anyone with a subscription to The Daily Prophet can read about. How horrible that would be, doing one's work in front of an audience. She shudders. "But they were faffing away at one another while the witches watched. We brought reading material."

"Let me guess. The Encyclopedia Magica."

"Hairstyle tips from the royal hairdresser, according to the cover."

"And between the covers?"

"I can't tell you."

"Imagine that."

"As I was saying, Ruddlesby could not overcome the _Protego Horribilis_. He kept finding himself with a mouth full of tooth powder. Jane says, 'Oi! Ruddles! You're saying it wrong. It's Pro-TAY-goh Hor-EE-bliss, not Pro-TAY-goh OR-rall-bliss."

"Hmm. I Protect Oral Bliss. Sounds right to me." Hooch says.

 _Thwack._

"Ow!" Her eyes flare yellow for an instant. Then she touches the back of her head and frowns when her fingers find the dent. "What was that?"

"An elbow."

"Really? Because it felt like a blow to the head to me." She stands up and eyes the dancers with predatory focus, "Where is it now? What is it doing?"

The dancers are packed in to the place. No patch of clear space is left on the dance floor. "I'm uncertain." Minerva muses.

Hooch rubs the growing lump on her head and scowls at the rhythmic melee, but Minerva's attention has turned inward, So Hooch kicks the chair aside and slips onto the wooden bench beside Minerva. A tall woman with rangy muscles, short cropped white hair, khaki trousers and a man's roll-neck jumper, Hooch easily passes for a beardless youth. No one looks twice when her arm goes around Minerva's shoulders. She brushes a quick kiss against Minerva's forehead and says, "And then what?"

"What what?"

"Oral Bliss."

"Right. And then the lot of them stop working and glare at her."

Hooch snorts.

"Urquart ahems and well-nows at us. Then he says that Ruddlesby is probably a bit parched and maybe Jane could bring some tea."

* * *

"Hermione Jean Granger, you have been showing off," Dumbledore intones. He has managed to get himself behind her desk so that she must sit in the "guest" chair. She's been watching him with her chin resting on her hand, her hand resting on the arm of the chair. The chair did not start its day with arms. She conjures them while he is demonstrating his all-powerfully telepathic discovery of her middle name.

She slides onto her own desk, and stretches out on one side, facing him like a chanteuse on a grand piano. "Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore **,** you are right," she says.

"Not especially covert, then," Dumbledore replies, and manfully pretends he did not squeak while he was at it.

"Building my team," she shrugs, as if she were not way, way inside the British Personal Space Perimeter, which, not yet being metric, makes the air between them roil with currents of clashing will. "My team, which I lead for no good reason any one of them can see."

He blinks first and her rolling office chair, with its lovely padded arms, scuttles backward as far as it will go. His retreat ends only because the floor ends, somewhat sooner than he thought it was going to, and the smack of the chair against the wall jars him the rest of the way out of his calculating composure.

"Are you this much trouble as a student?" He asks.

"I can't tell you," she tells him.

* * *

Jane Puckle twists her unruly hair into a loose knot at the nape of her neck, does an intricate little move with her wand – no magic, she just uses her wand as a hairpin – and secures it in place. She sighs. "I've a bargain," she tells the room in general and Elphinstone Urquart in particular. "Name your best man. I'll duel him. Loser fetches tea."

* * *

"Humdinger!" Hooch crows. She's left off keeping time to the revivalist beat by thrumming her fingers against Minerva's inner thigh, probably because she needs her hand to drink. "I like this bird. Is she bent?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

"You fancy her," Hooch says. Her fingers trace circles over Minerva's belly.

"She's a colleague.'

"So you could introduce us?'

Minerva's response is to slap Hooch's hand away.

"You fancy her."

* * *

Elphinstone Urquart takes charge. "Young lady, that's quite enough. I've indulged your – oddities – because Dumbledore believes you might be helpful, but—"

A wizard steps out of the embarrassed bachelor herd and presents himself on the dueling mat. He waves Ruddlesby away with an impatient gesture. "Ignatius Tuft," he says. "Best man."

"Jane Puckle," she says, "Matron of honour." She holds her hands out at her sides, showing Tuft and everyone else that she conceals neither wand nor weapon.

"Arm yourself," demands the challenger.

"Go," She says and begins a slow, measured approach toward Ignatius Tuft.

"Tuft!" Urquart harrumphs, "Not sporting!"

" _Incarcerous_!"

Jane Puckle doesn't flinch as the spell dissipates around her. It doesn't slow her down. It doesn't speed her up.

Tuft's next curse is unvoiced. " _Locomotor Mortis_ ," Jane identifies it as it veers harmlessly astray. Closer.

Ignatius Tuft is sweating. He winds up and flings a stream of bright light from the tip of his wand. Everyone in the room recognizes the unvoiced _stupefy._

Closer.

" _Confringo_!" Growls Tuft. Urquart pulls a wand to counter, but has to duck as the curse strikes sparks off Jane and explodes back out into the room.

Minerva throws an opened magazine over her head as if caught in a storm.

Jane covers the remaining distance through a buzzing barrage of curses cast hard and fast. With one decisive move, she snatches the wand from the young wizard's hand.

He looks at his empty fist in blank incomprehension.

She tosses the captured wand to Ruddlesby as she passes him on her way out of the dueling chamber. "Pro-TAY-go Hor-EE-bliss," she tells him. Then, loud enough for all to hear, "Minerva and I will be trading recipes in the Think Tank. I take my tea with milk."

It is almost certainly Urquart who says, "See here—"

She doesn't turn around. She doesn't slow down. She doesn't pull her wand. She flicks her fingers at the floor as if sprinkling it with water. A slight smell of burning hair wafts across the room. " _Levitestis_ ," she says.

"There's no such spell as _Levitestis_ ," sneers Ignatius Tuft.

Then, an odd look comes over his face. In fact, Minerva realizes, a similar expression is being worn by every male in the room. There is a faint whimpering of fabric. One by one, the wizards rise up on tiptoe and frantically circle their arms to maintain balance _en pointe._

"There is now," says Jane.

* * *

Hooch pounds the table with the palm of both hands and laughs until the water comes to her eyes. Minerva's deadpan fails her. She laughs until she can no longer maintain the tensile strength to remain upright, so collapses in a happy heap with her oldest friend.

* * *

"You could tell me. You know. I see war, Miss Granger. It is there in your mind, beyond the barriers you put up to keep me out of certain chambers. What purpose is served by secrecy? Why send all of us into an uncertain future, untold lives at stake, armed with riddles? You have no idea—"

"Do not finish that sentence, old man."

The menace in her whisper stops him cold.

Hermione Jane Jean Puckle Granger Weasley McGonagall (whoever the hell she is) takes a deeply anachronistic yoga breath and swings her legs over the edge of her desk so that she looks down at him from her perch. "I love you, Albus. I genuinely do. And I forgive you. Know that, if nothing else, because there may come a time when it means something to you. But I am the only one in this room who knows the final toll. Knows the names. Knows who they dreamt of becoming."

Something sizzles. Ozone taints the air.

"You are quite lethal at desk duels," he says.

She forces herself to focus on something other than the hypnotizing red tip of his white beard.

"In war, people die," he says.

"Beings, Albus. Beings die. Any line you draw around _us_ to keep out _them_ will tighten around you like a noose."

She hops down and strides toward the office door. He follows her, if only to avoid being kicked out.

"Professor," she says, making his title a question, "If I went back in time, before you began research with Flamel, and told you the fourteen uses of Dragon's Blood—"

"Twelve," he corrects.

She rolls her eyes at him and he gives her a complicit smile. "If I gave you that list, how much would you now know about the properties and habits of the Philosopher's Stone? Or the alchemic use of tears?"

"Very little," he admits.

"Those things are crucial," she says. Then adds, as she opens the door to show him out, "Many things are crucial, and I have no idea what they might be."

* * *

"Mara," Minerva says.

"Mmmph," replies Xiomara Hooch.

"Mara," Minerva repeats, half whine, half moan.

Hooch raises her eyes to meet Minerva's seriously unfocused gaze, and she does it without losing the connection between her tongue and Minerva's clitoris.

"We have," Minerva pants, lays a hand on the familiar head and tries again, "We have never done this in a bed." Her shoulder blades dig into the wall next to Hooch's front door, because they got no farther than that when the last of the clothing was pried off.

Hooch halts her spirited charge on Minerva's goal. She wipes her mouth on the sleeve of the jumper, which she is somehow wearing as a pantleg, stands up, scoops Minerva into her arms and carries her across the flat, where a soft feather bed is heaped with warm blankets. "You're too bloody thin," Hooch tells her, and lowers her into the nest with the effortlessness that comes from strength.

Minerva reaches up for her. "Show me something I don't know about you yet," she purrs.

So Xiomara Hooch maps Minerva's skin with adoring, unhurried kisses, teases her, mounts her, makes her so desperate to come that Minerva forgets to worry about pleasing, or performing, or anything at all, really. And when Minerva does come, it lasts as long as she needs it to last and stops only when she wants it to stop, and then Mara tells her silly jokes until she giggles.

* * *

Wilhelmina Tuft has a cackle for the ages. It is a cackle any witch in history, or even any witch in Shakespeare, would be proud to call her own. Hermione is dazzled.

Ignatius Tuft is not.

Elphinstone Urquart is not.

Hermione is concerned that the Minister for Magic might pass out from oxygen deprivation at some point. But, given the relentless pressure of high office, Hermione is proud to have provided Madame Tuft with this little bright spot in her day.

"She hoisted you by your own petards!" Exults Madame Tuft. "Splendid! You must teach me, Puckle."

"At your service, Minister."

"You'd treat your own son this way?" Ignatius rumbles.

"We will speak of this later, sir," Madame Tuft tells the young man.

Elphinstone Urquart can no longer contain his indignation and bobs his head like a dyspeptic rooster. "Madame," he croaks, rising from his seat. "I cannot stand by—"

"Stand idly by," deadpans Madame Tuft.

"Stand idly by and, aah, allow you to let this insult pass. This witch is unnatural. She's an _invert,_ I'll be bound. She is a sapphist spoiler of innocent girls. By her behavior and manner, she attacks the very essence of English womanhood, self-absorbed, mannish in manners and dress, aping those who would protect-"

" _Allow_ me, Elphinstone?"

"She wields an unhealthy influence over Miss McGonagall, a young lady from an old family, who serves under my protection. I wouldn't be surprised if she hasn't already forced her attentions—"

With a gentle wave of her fingers, Madame Tuft shuts off Elphinstone Urquarts's voice. She is a comfortably upholstered, matronly witch in traditional robes. There is a bit of lace at her collar, and bits of lace at her cuffs. The lace at her left cuff hides a wand sheath. _Aha,_ Hermione thinks, _the lady has something up her sleeve._

Hermione, Urquart, and the younger Tuft sit in overstuffed chairs arrayed in a semi-circle about a French Provincial desk. Hermione is a bit giddy. This is Wilhelmina Tuft. The Wilhelmina Tuft.

"Please pardon the intrusion into private matters," says the Minister, "But the medi-witch who gave you the physical examination after your unorthodox arrival wrote in her report that you appear to be the mother of between one and three children?

"Two," Hermione admits.

Elphinstone Urquart is forced to express his consternation without the usual fusillade of non-lexical vocables.

"And they are?"

"Nearly grown, reasonably safe, and quite capable of sharing their mother with the nation."

"Just so," Madame Tuft nods thoughtfully. "I do understand that. And, forgive me again, but I cannot help but notice that you wear a ring on the finger that normally signifies marriage."

Hermione can't deny it. The ring is there on her finger.

Wilhelmina Tuft leans forward at her desk and softens her voice.

Oh, the eye contact. The concerned crinkle at the corners of her eyes. This is as canny a politician as Hermione has ever met.

"Is your husband living, My Dear?"

"No, he isn't," she answers.

Another gentle wave of the fingers, and Elphinstone Urquart's voice returns in a sputter.

Hermione bites back the bile of her subterfuge. _Tactics, old girl. One step at a time._

"And can you describe the nature of your interest in Miss McGonagall?"

"Minerva McGonagall is, without doubt, the brightest witch of her age. No other Unspeakable has her potential for magical power. Can we afford to waste it? Dumbledore thinks not. He has charged me with nurturing that talent."

"He has said as much. He agitates daily for her entry into the advanced transfiguration programme."

"Rightly so," Hermione says.

Madame Tuft drums her fingers lightly upon the polished wood of her desk. The gesture is so like the gentle wave she uses to cast spells that it serves as mild threat and, therefore, effective distraction. "Very well, then. Elphinstone, you have a new apprentice," she rules. The fingers straighten and tap the desk once. It is barely audible and as final as the bang of a gavel.

Hermione is so impressed by the finesse of this encounter that she almost forgets to be wildly irritated at the outcome.

The wizards are graciously invited to hie themselves hence. "But you stay, Puckle," the Minister requests.

"Of course." Hermione stands while the others retreat. She waits, respectfully, with her hands clasped in front of her.

"Thank you, Jane. May I call you Jane?"

"Please do."

"Jane, did something about the conversation we just had seem odd to you?" Asks Wilhelmina Tuft.

"Since you mention it, yes, something did."

The wave is reversed, which turns it into an invitation.

"Does your son often refer to himself in the third person, Minister?"


	8. Etir Taerg - TOWT Inspiration

A/N: Terrible Things Happen to Wizards Who Meddle With Viewpoint

* * *

Time. What is it? Does it flow in one direction? Is it a series of discrete quanta? Is it the stream we go a-fishin' in? Or is it the thing that keeps everything from happening at once? Is it the full stop in a life sentence? And if it is the full stop, what is the sentence made of? Is it on my side? Is there a smallest possible unit of time? A smallest possible particle of time? A largest possible unit of time? A largest possible particle of time?

Does it always run at the same rate?

"No!"

Okay, Einstein figured that out for us. Well done, him. So if time can run at different rates, how do we measure it?

"A clock!"

Really? We're going to regulate relativistic time with gears and levers?

* * *

"That is why you kept checking your watch," Minerva proclaims. "The question is, did you try to apparate a great distance only to have the speed manifest as a leap in time, or did you try to make a leap in time that manifested itself as a great distance crossed at relativistic speeds? Did you find a way to travel so fast that the Ministry's wards couldn't see you? Is that how you breach wards?"

"Brilliant! Absolutely wrong in every detail, but brilliant anyway."

"Give me a better explanation and I'll change my mind. And while you're about it, throw in the bit where you name my cat."

* * *

Teeth lightly scraping a pink nipple, tickling it, sucking it into a warm mouth and soothing it until the soothing becomes a demand for something it longs to deliver. And in the dream, Hermione cannot tell if she suckles or is sucked. But the dream knows that Minerva is inside of her and when she wakes up with her own fingers thrust between her legs and bucks for that release, she hangs on to the knowledge, even as it fades and is replaced by a sweaty, solitary rut.

 _Mine_ , as her center pushes up and out and back against Hermione's refusal to stop, refusal to let herself rest until the coming is bought with pain, and after, when her body can give no more.

Get up, walk about, work the cramps out of your feet and calves. Wash your hands and splash water on your face. Take a wee dram. Offer a toast.

My once and future love, I will keep you safe. Even from me.

Put the tumbler down. Do not refill.

There must be something magical about three in the morning. That is the true witching hour. It is nearly impossible to keep up illusions at 3 am. And Hermione can now see that she has been nothing but a vehicle for Minerva all along. Minerva is the one who can reach deep down into the self that existed before mammals grew the ability to tell one moment from another, the time before time, when everything was now. That's the key.

Controlling the threshold between wave and particle keeps it contained. The reliable rate of atomic decay laid down at the birth of the universe keeps it in sync. But the magic of suspending disbelief in the past and future, of dragging all of it into the _now_ —that is Minerva. She will master the transfiguration of matter and energy. She will master the physics of keeping time with God's watch. Elphinstone will give her one and Hermione will give her the other. She'll open wide and take these ideas into her body. Her body will try to process it the way her body processes almost everything: carnally.

She will figure out how to do this with the same reckless violence and loving tenderness that first formed the world, because this is old magic, powerful magic, time-out-of-mind magic, and it is _not_ fucking around.

Except.

Except if that is true, why hasn't Minerva simply re-created that magic in the 21st century?

What is it Minerva can do here that she won't be able to do then? What is it that is known now that will be lost then?

Ah. Of course.

The Ministry would guard its secrets in just that way, wouldn't it? Three principals on the project. Only two are named in classified record. And of those, one never makes it to the 21st century.

Urquart. And what are the chances he hoards his secrets even unto the grave?

* * *

The tabby looks as if it has been in a street fight with a tom, but the lightning-fast change that still stuns Hermione yields a Minerva lit up with joy.

And with smug.

Her cheeks are pink and her hair is showing signs of having been repaired, rather than freshly styled into its New Look bob. And, yes, she leaves sex trailing in the breeze behind her as the thrill of discovery makes her stalk about the room, talking just a bit faster than Hermione can follow. Especially because Hermione is gobsmacked with the realization that she has actually assumed Minerva would remain, in some fashion, faithful to her, practically celibate, and pining away for an unobtainable dream woman, possibly until Hermione gets around to seducing her in another lifetime.

And now Minerva has said something about having a jazz-related revelation about the relationship of wave to particle and quantum to flow that provides a much more satisfying (and she doesn't even realize that she licks her lips and makes the tiniest thrust of hip on the word _satisfying_ ) theoretical underpinning (do not for the love of god dwell on the image of Minerva pinned under you and licking her lips etc.) to the Reformation-era theory of transfiguration (or, worse, pinned under anyone else and licking her lips etc.) that she is learning from Urquart (absolutely not), which, while effective as far as it goes, Minerva is finding limited in its application to anything really interesting.

"I'm sorry, Jane. Have I come at a bad time?"

"No, of curse – I mean of course not. You can come anytime you like, I just—"

Too late. Too much blushing while telling her she can come any time she likes. And now the hesitation has gone on too long. Bugger.

"I see."

Oh, the lovely sway of those hips as they pull the rest of her across the room.

"Is that what it takes? Cerebral stimulation? D'ye lather for a brain that can best ye?"

No, dear, what it apparently takes is breasts. Or, rather, coming face to face with the idea that your luscious breasts (about which I am absurdly territorial) are right there under that linen blouse and that someone else gets to see them while they can still stand up by themselves, heaven bless them. And that someone will never be me. Which makes me a right selfish bastard when it comes down to it. Oh, please don't come closer and put your vulnerable young self and those simply smashing tits in near-intimate contact with me.

Too late. Again.

"Does your life not contain enough challenge without recreational Puckle hunting, Lintie?"

"I'm twenty-six years old, Jane. No gay lass. Can you not take me seriously?"

"You cannot imagine how seriously I am taking you right now."

"Verra weel, then," Minerva husks, "There's more where that came from."

Intellectual breakthroughs. She is talking about intellectual breakthroughs. So that works out well. Rather better than I deserve. "You're twenty-five."

* * *

What is our first, best, most primal experience of time? What kind of time do we feel deep down in our bones?

"Ragtime!"

Very funny. And nearly correct. Stay on that track. What about a mother's heartbeat? Your own heartbeat? The very rhythm of life? And how do we connect our magical power to this rhythm of life, dig deep down into the organic basis of our magic and marry it to the universal clock?

"Bongos!"

While it is true that in these times it is inevitable that any group of twenty young males will yield at least two who play the skins, it may be necessary to do something that involves more of our senses. What about it? Who is brave enough to put on the muggle mufti and get with the beat?

"Don't worry, lads," Minerva tells the twelve wide-eyed wizards. "I know a place. The music is fine. And - of particular interest to you lot - the lights are always low."

* * *

Bachelor Boffins Bop to the Beat

Well, as a lesson plan, it's got jazz.


	9. Ecanem Motnahp Eht - TOWT Jazz

A/N: The Boolean Search Term Here is "Trad Jazz AND Onions"

* * *

Blishwick? Take the pleat out of those dungarees immediately.

Williams? I want to see a scuff on those shoes, son.

Ruddlesby? Good job. You'll have to go with either the stripe or the plaid, though. They do not coexist in nature.

Tuft? Feckless youth is not your ideal disguise. Could you learn to lick the licorice stick before nine o'clock? No? Perhaps a close shave and a uniform, then.

Thurkel? Wrong end of the duck, man. Try again.

* * *

Tip: Although the flavor of boomslang skin is indistinguishable from preserved anchovies, the two are not interchangeable as potion ingredients. Neither is it recommended that boomslang-skin butter be served on sandwiches at teatime. At least, not to the impressionable or unwary.

 _Advanced Potion Making  
_ Libatius Borage, Author  
Obscurus Books, 1947 Edition

* * *

"Onions?"

"Onions."

"Truly?"

"Onions."

"Why onions?"

"Shut up and dance."

* * *

...it is disingenuous to say that a potion is merely a drug. Potion-making predates modern pharmacology by untold millennia. The two disciplines diverged quite recently in human history.

In fact, a drug is merely a potion. And like the drugs with which modern Muggle-borns are familiar, potion effectiveness varies with body chemistry. There are those who cannot digest lacewing fly, for example. Larger bodies call for larger doses. And the period of effectiveness for most potions in the body can be dramatically shortened by vigorous exercise…

Hermione Granger  
Foreword, _Advanced Potion Making  
_ Obscurus Press, 2013 Edition

* * *

Hermione is not sure when she began to think of them as Minerva and Her Twelve Apostles.

She guesses it was just after the meeting with Minister Tuft, when Minerva was awarded the apprenticeship in advanced transfiguration. The only young woman in a sea of young men, Minerva spends her mornings with Elphinstone Urquart, her afternoons in the Time Lab, and most evenings on the arm of Albus Dumbledore. She is unavailable, uninterested, a half-step above them on the Ministry's social ladder, the perfect size and shape to be flattered by popular fashion, as profane as any Scot, and a spectacularly good sport. In a word, irresistible.

One by one, each wizard of the bachelor herd finds a reason to begin a flirtation with Minerva that ends in a serious, whispered, forehead-touching conversation. Hermione knows at a glance that Minerva is tutoring each man in some small skill vital to his research.

More and more, the daily success of Project Now and Then falls on her slim white shoulders.

* * *

Field Notes: Project Now and Then  
Hermione Granger, Operating as "Jane Puckle"  
Anachron Shower Prime + 102 Days (Subjective)

If I ever get out of this room, I shall have to alert the Poets generally that, when time stands still, the chief symptom is not love, but nausea.

The first recorded instance of a sabbat field* suspending ordinary time is not recognized as such, even by most of the participants. Each of the twelve wizards (and one witch) participating in the dance experience a moment of disorientation followed by intense nausea and some dizziness. In the circumstance, this is interpreted by their Muggle dance partners as excess alcohol consumption. Only I notice the simultaneous onset of symptoms in thirteen apparent strangers.

The symptoms pass quickly. Two operatives have to temporarily leave the dance floor.

The second recorded instance is more obvious.

*Sabbat Field - Temporal disturbance associated with the coordinated rhythmic movement of thirteen wizards, or any regional variation thereof. Term coined by (REDACTED) in (REDACTED).

* * *

"Beans and what?"

"Cornbread!"

"What bread?"

"Cornbread!"

"Would the corn be _in_ the bread or _on_ the bread?"

"Shut up and dance."

* * *

The danger of being caught up in something communal, anonymous in a crowd, hypnotized by the rhythm of music and dance, and clearly just a few Lindy Hops away from fulfilling one's mission in life, is how easy it becomes to overlook the fact that one has become – for example – four inches shorter.

* * *

Field Notes: Project Now and Then  
Hermione Granger, Operating as "Jane Puckle"  
Anachron Shower Prime + 108 Days (Subjective)

The second recorded instance of a sabbat field suspending ordinary time occurs fewer than ten minutes after the first, under similar circumstances. On this occasion, the time dilation is noticeable to the witches and wizards present. The music seems to warp and drop in pitch. Muggle dancers shift into slow-motion (although the term "slow-motion" is not in wide use outside of the film industry in 1951). This works to our advantage. The peculiar nature of witnessing a slow-motion effect makes the wizards freeze instinctively. The effect lasts for a count of six, then ends abruptly. If the Muggle dancers notice the jerky movements of some on the dance floor, they give no sign. It is the fact that they all stop dancing at that moment in order to look at me that almost gives everything away. That, and the smoldering tea towel that comes fluttering out of the vaulting to land on my head.

* * *

If time is supposed to keep everything from happening at once, it fails catastrophically at the moment history's first documented temporal vortex opens up and lets loose the famous Saint Swithin's Day* Anachron Shower**.

 _I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate_

A handsome soldier too short for his uniform bubbles and squeaks and grows the cheekbones of a Slav.

 _She shimmies like a jelly on a plate_

A funnel cloud opens up above the dance floor at the old St. Pancras underground station and more than a hundred Trad Jazz fans freeze still as statues.

 _I know that I'm late, but I'll be up-to-date_

The band freezes as well, and an elongated D diminished minor screeches until its wave collapses for the lack of one essential dimension in which to oscillate.

 _When I can shimmy like my sister Kate_

Both the stranger who used to be Ignatius Tuft and the souvenir-filled funnel cloud lurch toward a forty-something witch with misbehaving hair.

*The Saint Swithin's Day Anachron Shower is famous for having occurred on an easily identified day in no definable year. The cause is unrecorded. The incident is regarded as apocryphal by Ministry of Magic historians.

**Anachron Shower - Displacement of matter through a temporal disturbance where mass is proportional to the energy of the temporal field. Term coined by Menlo Park, Bureau of Destructive Technology, MACUSA, who first theorized the phenomenon in 1887.

* * *

Field Notes: Project Now and Then  
Hermione Granger, Operating as "Jane Puckle"  
Anachron Shower Prime + 120 Days (Subjective)

The temporal vortex creates a sort of tunnel through time. Examination of the debris sucked through the vortex shows that it most likely originates in a gift shop located on the site of the jazz club, probably in the early-to-mid twenty-first century. The anachron shower somehow energizes the matter being pulled through the tube. My working theory is that everything within the event horizon of the funnel cloud is in a state of charmed decoherence*. The loosed souvenirs look and feel to me like ordinary objects when within the funnel.

Except for the glowing bits.

*Charmed Decoherence - No idea

* * *

Hermione puts the quill down on the writing desk and rubs her eyes. If she can only get this all down, write it out in black and white, order these thoughts like she would any other report, then she might not go mad. Narrative imposes order. She very much needs some order.

The problem is, her memories do not take the form of narrative. At this incident, time does not flow. It occurs in bursts, or pulses, each one a world unto itself:

-Muggle dancers stop in mid-grimace. Ecstatic pleasure looks just like pain in their faces. Their forms go blurry at the edges and merge with the background noise.

-Being engulfed in a funnel cloud, buffeted by forces that are not quite wind, and smacked by merchandise that is not quite there.

-The thing Tuft becomes when the Polyjuice potion fails.

-The strobe effect of the imposter's attack, until he breaches the funnel cloud's edge and becomes whole next to her, with his wand out and thrust into the soft tissue of her neck.

-Minerva suspended mid-leap. The bloodthirsty curl of her lip.

-The feeling of being pulled toward Minerva.

-The feeling of being yanked away from Minerva.

-The feeling of feral pleasure in the impulse to kill whoever this bastard is holding a wand to her neck.

-The pain of crashing together into the hard barrier of a condition delimiter, which also happens to be the concrete floor of Pancras Portal, the old Key Port under platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross. Which is, of course, the old St. Pancras tube station, future jazz club, and eventual tourist trap, currently connected by a funnel cloud of wounded time.

-Relief at the familiar faces rushing toward the spot where she grapples with the imposter.

-Disorientation when the jinx subtly alters the tone of her flesh and relaxes the consistency of her hair, so that it falls black and lank in her eyes. Punjabi? Korean?

-Dismay when the imposter yells, "Auror! Help! Please! She's trying to sabotage the Express!"

-Instinctively deflecting the first stunner spell and reaching out her free hand to the caster, "Dumbledore!"

-Throwing curses around the stone chamber when her pleas are taken for threats.

-Throwing herself back into the funnel cloud and displacing an equal mass of anachron scree, which slingshots away from the funnel and attaches itself to anything temporally stable.

-The sizzle when some of it hits human flesh.

-Throwing herself back into the funnel cloud and displacing an equal mass of anachron scree, which slingshots away from the funnel and attaches itself to anything temporally stable.

-The sizzle when some of it hits human flesh

-Throwing herself back into the funnel cloud and displacing an equal mass of anachron scree, which slingshots away from the funnel and attaches itself to anything temporally stable.

-The sizzle when some of it hits human flesh.

-Aiming _expelliarmus_ and reaching out for a left-handed catch when the imposter's wand flies to the hand of its true master.

-Shoving the imposter back into the funnel with no conscious thought other than dragging his doomed carcass _home._

-The sizzle when

-Blackness. Timeless blackness. That there is a beginning and end to the blackness does not alter the fact that the blackness is infinite.

-Landing face-down on the black oak parquet of McGonagall Manor, bruised, broken, bloody, and wearing a hissing house-elf for a hat.


	10. Tsehc Yabmob Eht - TOWT Cuddling

A/N: The time is out of joint. O cursèd spite, That ever I was born to set it right! Nay, come, let's go together.

* * *

"I am so confused," opines Elphinstone Urquart.

"Look, it's quite simple," Minerva begins. But before she can finish snapping off Urquart's befuddled head, Minister Tuft arrives at the Time Lab. She is accompanied by three aurors and an equal number of Ministry functionaries.

"I'm afraid it's the old _imperius_ -slash-polyjuice-twins-thwarted-by-anchovies-in-the-boomslang trick again, Elphinstone. Wonder anyone falls for it these days, really," Dumbledore explains, after all have risen from their chairs and re-seated themselves in the presence of Minister Tuft, who looks as if she's lived ten years in as many hours.

"Right. Well. Yes. Refresh our memories, Albus, for the newcomers in the room?" Urquart replies.

* * *

A tea tray with scones and raspberry jam rests on the little Bombay chest that acts as a bedside table. Hermione groans and gradually comes to the awareness that, though injured, she's fairly comfortable.

She occupies a bed in a small stone room on what feels like a ground floor. The lamplight is low. A large man sits in shadow across the room. His ankle rests on one knee. His hand drapes casually over the arm of a chair. It holds a wand. His other hand is in shadow.

Hermione has no wand. She's been put in a nightgown and had her wounds neatly dressed.

"The house-elf won't let me kill you," says Magnus McGonagall.

"Well, I won't let you kill Flora, either, so we're even."

"Ye've got my wards. My full wards. The ones that make you heir and master of McGonagall Manor. The ones only I can give."

"I do? All that?"

"Did you steal them?"

"No, Boban, you handed them right over."

Nothing is said for a long time. The figure in the chair hasn't twitched a muscle. His face is shadowed, but Hermione can see enough to positively identify him, if the voice and context weren't enough. He is worryingly young, though. And seriously good-looking. Magnus McGonagall is hewn from Scots pine and sex, pure and simple. He is a direct and logical link between Hermione's beloved lion-hearted spinster, and the people so fierce that the Ninth Legion had to build a wall to prevent them from conquering the Roman Empire.

"Drink," he says.

Hermione sips her tea. It has a satisfying dollop of Scotch in it.

"Praise be blest," Hermione says, swallowing hard and letting her head hit the pillow again.

"Are ye' a child of mine, then?"

"By marriage," Hermione answers truthfully.

The wand tip lifts, subtly, but the threat is solid. "I want you to take off that ring and put it on the table, there."

Hermione does so, being careful not to move too quickly, or allow her hands to drop out of his line of sight. As she slips the ring from her finger, an infant's cry pierces the stone walls of this chamber.

"Oh, no," Hermione says.

* * *

"Before we go on," Minister Tuft says, "Aurors report that the prisoner is secured. He's being interrogated. My son is being treated for the effects of an _imperius_ , but is in reasonably good health. He remembers the first part of the journey back from Siberia with the other investigators we sent to Tungaska. We believe he was compromised just before reaching Helsinki."

"Compromised?" Urquart asks.

"By Marxist Unspeakables. Their equivalent, at least. They may have destroyed their own research facility. Those nearly four-hundred witches and wizards believed dead are probably planted as spies in other Magical governments all over the world by now."

"Merlin's beard!"

"Exactly."

* * *

When the music stops and the funnel cloud forms, Minerva is looking directly at the imposter, because she has been watching him all night.

It makes no sense to her that Ignatius Tuft would try to murder a Ministry employee in a dueling match, not even for wounded pride. And _confringo_ is deadly.

How does one approach the Minister of Magic with a half-formed theory about her son, and on no evidence, especially when the Minister is aware of all the facts Minerva herself possesses? That is why Minerva starts diluting the departmental supply of boomslang skin with preserved anchovies. Tuft's research requires that ingredient. He would have no reason to obtain a supply from anywhere else. If he is a disguised threat, then he will reveal himself to everyone through the effects of an imperfect Polyjuice potion.

It isn't revenge. She is in no way delighted at the failed experiments he suffers after attacking Jane.

Now he is revealed, and he is attacking Jane.

She lunges for them. The funnel cloud tries to pull in some things while expelling others, but Minerva's wand is out and she is snarling, fighting the need to push claws from the tips of her fingers. The _finite incantatem_ hasn't had time to fully form before the vortex accelerates her flight and she has landed on an inert, Russian-babbling wizard of about her own age. He is wandless and badly burned over much of his body. The funnel cloud is gone. Jane is gone.

It is only the timely intervention of Ruddlesby, who throws his arms around Minerva and speaks calmly, that keeps the imposter from being quite spectacularly gone himself.

Minerva doesn't know how long she stays there, on hands and knees, on the sticky floor of that jazz club. It cannot be long. It only seems that way because it is rich in experience.

 _Kill him. Fail. Protect her. Fail. Save her. Fail. My fault. Fail. What was I thinking? Fail. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Fail. All for nothing. Fail. Who did I think I was fooling? Fail. This is all there is and all there will ever be and well I know it. Again and again, it will happen, and there will never be anything but kill and hide and temporary, duplicitous relief until it all becomes fail again._

"Minerva? Minerva, what is that? Are you injured? I need help," Ruddlesby is saying.

She is panting, she realizes. Ruddlesby is nearby. Ruddlesby is a good lad. Not especially powerful, but sensible, which, in Minerva's recently formed opinion on the topic, is the most useful sort of person. _Bad enough the hat sorted me both Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Now I've become a Hufflepuff in my old age. Just as well. My go at Slytherin tactics was bollocks._ She turns her head to look at Ruddlesby crouching there beside her. "Help?" She says.

"Tuft—the imposter—something's wrong with him. What is that?"

Minerva becomes aware that time runs normally again. The club fills up with Ministry officials. They do damage control and cast memory charms. But she is still pinning someone to the ground. She looks at him. The burns on his body describe patterns. Some of it is recognizable as writing or images, as if he has been magically branded by collisions with the odd assortment of objects scattered about. Some portion of his face is imprinted with a map. It looks like a map. There's Picadilly.

She holds his face by the chin and turns it about to get a good look.

"More," he is murmuring to her, even as pain makes his eyes lose focus, "So many more."

"I do know what this is," she tells Ruddlesby. "Notify Albus Dumbledore."

And Minerva McGonagall makes the decision to get up and get on with it.

* * *

"Aye. Tis from my own mine," Magnus McGonagall says. "Must be the last bit of ore dragged from it, too. But there's nae off about it. Except for the part where it willna' come off your finger unless you take it off."

He tosses the silver ring back to Hermione, who lets it land on the bed beside her before retrieving it. When she puts it back on her finger, the infant wail stops.

"I think," Hermione starts, then gives some thought to how much information Magnus McGonagall can safely have. The truth is, she has no idea. "I think it's a McGonagall finder, for emergencies. I think it pulls me in the direction of the one who charmed it, which is why I am here instead of lost in," she cuts off, gives Magnus an apologetic shrug, and says, "Which is why I am here. Where is here, exactly? I usually land in the library."

"Flora!" Magnus calls. The house-elf pops into the room. She carries a satchel with her, and places herself between the two humans with a resigned sort of trudge.

"None of it, Master," she tells Magnus. "Nor you as well, Master," she says to Hermione, in a baritone just short of a randy bull auditioning for _Don Giovanni_.

Magnus stirs from his chair. "I promised you, Flora," he says.

"So ye did," she nods.

"I'm going to take a closer look at the ring," he says. Flora scampers up onto the bed and straddles Hermione's chest in anticipation of this event.

Hermione holds her hand out for perusal.

He prods the ring with his wand. It tingles. He waves the tip of his wand about Hermione in general. Her ring finger tingles.

"I'm thinking it has no power when you're not wearing it, lass."

"Entirely sensible," Hermione replies. "Boban, I have important things to say and I don't know how much time I have."

"You have been coming and going from this bed for more than a week, now. I don't ken where you go."

"Do I move about?"

"No. You sleep in that bed. Just here, then gone, then here."

"I may be in terrible, terrible danger.

"Speak your mind."

"I think I need a place that isn't going to change, possibly for many years. The furniture can't be moved. People can't move about in it. I think I'm popping in and out of, well, existence, reality, something like that. If I can't predict when, then I have to be sure that nothing will be in the space I need to occupy when I return. Do you see? Until I find some answers, I need a place with food and water and books."

"Is this dangerous to me or mine?"

"Probably not."

"Well, Mystery McGonagall, this does appear to be your home, whether I like it or not. You keep a mountain of secrets from a man you claim as father, though."

"I'm protecting me and mine," she tells him.

The staring contest is interrupted by a mewling yowl just inches from Hermione's face. Flora's satchel stirs. She turns it out to lay a still-wet kitten on Hermione's chest. It roots for a teat. "Found it left by its mother in the pantry behind the oven," she says, "Good luck for the bairn, it is."

Hermione eyes the cat. "Could you do me a wee favor?" She asks.

* * *

"Let me see if I understand all this," Urquart says. "You, Minister, suspected something was awry with young Ignatius. Instead of coming to his department head with your misgivings, you colluded with Jane Puckle to test him for Polyjuice potion use. A test which he passed, allaying your suspicions."

"Broadly true," agrees Minister Tuft.

"But it turns out that the reason he passed is because you were testing Ignatius himself, under an _imperius_ curse he picked up in Helsinki when an enemy agent somehow infiltrated, undetected, a cadre of experienced Ministry field operatives who were investigating an apparently counterfeit time-catastrophe that had been unknown to us until predicted by Jane Puckle."

"Again, consistent with the facts as I understand them."

"Later, Jane Puckle arranges for Unspeakables to join her in a den of jazz to gyrate wildly about, ostensibly to learn more about the nature of time. Unknown to her, however, Miss McGonagall has pursued her own investigation of Ignatius's odd behavior, with the result that the enemy agent is inadvertently revealed to his fellows. The enemy agent and Jane Puckle then conjure some sort of portkey or apparition spell—"

"I object, Elphinstone," Dumbledore interjects, "We have no evidence that either the imposter or Miss Puckle conjured the phenomenon. The maelstrom itself is consistent with theories posed some decades ago by Menlo—"

"But don't we, Albus? I know I have attended many a lively dance in my time. You and Miss McGonagall have hoochie-coochied through every social event of this season. Has any of this activity caused a destructive whirlwind to appear out of thin air and whisk us away?"

"I concede the point, Elphinstone," Dumbledore says with a slight inclination of his head, "But I maintain that there are other salient facts which may lead to other explanations."

"May I continue, Minister?" Urquart asks.

"Do go on."

"The next thing we hear is that Albus Dumbledore and others may have witnessed the result of this escape some years back, when a man, possibly one resembling the imposter, appeared under platform 9¾ accompanied by a dark-haired woman identified by reliable witnesses as an oriental. The two fought a duel with our people, during which Albus Dumbledore sustained an injury to the knee. Said injury formed a scar in the shape of a map of the London Underground. How are my facts, Albus?"

"The two who appeared from a funnel cloud on that platform in front of reliable witnesses did not fight a duel with my warding party. The male subdued the female and sought our help in restraining her. The female then called my name and reached out to me. I reacted with a defensive stunning spell, which was deflected by the female. Others of my party attempted to overcome the female. Dueling ensued."

"Dumbledore shot first. Noted. Did the female then disarm the male? Did his wand fly to her hand?"

"Yes."

"Just so. Later, Miss McGonagall recognized a similar pattern of scarring on the imposter when she overcame him at the jazz club. Jane Puckle, however, got away. We have found no sign of her. This, in spite of having traveled to our past, giving her ample opportunity to warn us of danger."

"I object," Minerva softly states.

All heads turn to her. "This is not a trial, McGonagall. But, please, share your thoughts."

"Puckle did not 'get away'. She was ripped away from me by the phenomenon."

"How do you know this?" Asks the Minister.

"I felt it," Minerva states.

"And how do you know of an intimate scar sustained by Albus Dumbledore?" Urquart demands.

"I saw it."

"How?"

"He came to my bedroom when my father was out and hiked up his kit to show me."

There is, among the assembled, a disturbance falling somewhere between kerfuffle and uproar.

Minister Wilhelmina Tuft lifts one finger from the tabletop and there is instant, respectful silence.

"McGonagall, attend to me," she says. Minerva does, "You do understand Urquart's implication that the witch you know as Jane Puckle is an enemy conspirator who may have used Polyjuice potion to infiltrate the Ministry, that the imposter now in custody is in league with her, and that their end was to commit an act of war?"

"Yes."

"And you further understand that by rejecting this theory, and by embracing your personal responsibility for the utterly irresponsible decision to act on your own to sabotage the Polyjuice potion ingredients, you have endangered the Ministry _and the life of my son_?"

"I should like to point out that Puckle being an enemy spy and my personal responsibility for endangering both the Ministry and Ignatius are not mutually exclusive," Minerva answers, "But, yes, to your point, I do understand. I did not refrain from confiding my suspicions to my superiors because I believed Puckle, or any of you, untrustworthy. I did it because I was afraid of reprimand and ridicule. Cowardice, in short."

Four things then happen at once.

"Miss McGonagall," Elphinstone Urquart grumps.

"My Dear," Albus Dumbledore admonishes.

"McGonagall," Wilhelmina Tuft commands.

"Minerva!" Jane Puckle cries, arriving uncharacteristically through an ordinary door, "Thank god you're all right. I'm so sorry I'm late, but I had to name a cat and the timestream keeps shoving me away from my exit point. Is Ignatius safe?"

* * *

LATER

"Jane," Minerva says. They are once again in the small Ministry flat assigned to Jane Puckle. She has been gone less than 24 hours in Minerva's perceived time. So the flat's interior is exactly the way Jane left it. It is much more heavily guarded than it was, however. Minerva knows this is the best that can be hoped for, given that the Ministry may, at any moment, indict Jane Puckle on charges of espionage. This is Jane's reward for having unlocked the first great mystery of time travel, survived untold years in dangerous circumstances, fought her way back to a time unnatural to her, all to serve a nation that may well send her to Azkaban. More accurately, she has done this to save a nation that may well send her to Azkaban.

"Minerva? Hullo? Where are you? I'm right here." Jane pipes.

"So you are," Minerva says. "Jane, there's something y'must know. Very soon, I am going to fling myself into your arms. This will be more comfortable for you if you are seated on a bed or sofa of some kind. Now," she holds up long fingers to stave off Jane's anticipated response, "I understand your objection to my suitability as a lover. However, if I do not have your arms around me within the next five minutes, I will explode into little soggy bits and you will never be able to put me back th'gither. This is fact."

Jane says nothing as she arranges pillows and cushions on the floor in one little corner of the one room that does not contain a bed or a toilet. When satisfied, she places herself upon it, leans into the cushions propped against the wall, and rests her folded hands upon her outstretched thighs. At this moment, the big streak of stubborn that has been holding up Minerva's spine does a controlled collapse on the makeshift cot. Minerva tucks her shoulder under Jane's arm, rests her cheek upon Jane's shoulder, pushes the entire length of her body as close to Jane as it can go without fusing, and trembles for five solid minutes while Jane kisses the top of her head, strokes her arms, soothes her with a soft, warm, calm, compliant, undemanding body.

Minerva breathes her in. She has never known anyone or anything that smells as good as Jane Puckle. Even now.

"Y'smell different," Minerva says after a while, "You've been gone years. How many years?"

"What do you smell?"

"Tis what I don't smell."

Jane gently squeezes Minerva's hand when it clasps hers.

"The change. When you came here, you were fertile," Minerva looks up, but can't see Jane's face from her current position, and she very much wants to stay right where she is.

"Remarkable," Jane tells her. "I sometimes forget how gifted you are, Linty."

"You think I'm a great blubbering baby."

"Well, yes and no."

"I was hoping to catch up with you soon, and here you are twice my age, at least."

"Thank you for pointing that out."

Minerva bends her knee, captures Jane's legs under her own. Jane allows this with a resigned sigh. Minerva keeps it up, even though it puts the blast furnace between her thighs so close to Jane, she can barely keep herself from rolling her hips in search of that longed-for friction. But she does keep herself from doing that, and after some moments the spike of desire falls back down to a place she can relax into.

* * *

"Tell me what's going to happen," Minerva asks.

"No."

"Tell me you will nae leave me again."

"No."

"Tell me you'll never want me."

Three seconds can be a long, long time in the right circumstances.

 _Some of us_ , Hermione thinks, _have self control._

"That's all well, Jane," Minerva nestles closer, "I heard the 'no'."


	11. Em Esirprus - TOWT Dragons

A/N: Pygmy dragons provided by the Unitary Parliament of Sorcery Slovenščina

* * *

Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, London, 2013

Celebration to mark the passing into law of legislation known as _House Elf Rights: Magical Independence of Non-Human Entities_

* * *

The forested atrium adjoining the DepRegConMagCreat offices glitters with all-volunteer, free-range fairy lights. The buffet table is laden with an ever-replenishing supply of taste explosions. The shrapnel, in turn, feeds a squadron of Slovenian pygmy dragons. With a snap of the fingers, guests can summon one of these crystalline dragons for a tableside marshmallow roast. Rare, Medium, and Seamus Finnegan are all options.

The house-elves have the night off. It is their first night off in history. They are spending it doing one another's laundry.

Hermione watches the celebration from one of the many balconies that overlook the protected habitat. She twirls the stem of the champagne glass in her hand. The bubbles form a vortex in the golden liquid.

"Miss Granger?"

The polite voice behind her is unmistakable, even if it seems to come from shadow. Ah, yes. She would be scrupulously correct, wouldn't she? _Hermione_ would do. _Hermione_ has done for many years, now. And yet, Hermione finds the reclaimed maiden name spoken in the familiar voice reassuring, somehow, rather than depressing.

"Miss McGonagall," she acknowledges the visitor.

Part of the shadow detaches and moves into the space beside her on the balcony.

Hermione summons a glass of champagne for Minerva. This gives her time to marshal her responses to the inevitable congratulations and/or summons to join the celebration.

Minerva catches the glass mid-flight. "How are you?" She asks.

"Recently divorced," Hermione deadpans. "And you?"

"Lesbian spinster," Minerva answers.

Hermione sips her champagne. Both women gaze out on the scene below in unhurried contemplation.

"Why do I feel like we've just exchanged our secret super-hero identities?" Hermione asks.

A very slight intake of breath. Possibly even an amused snort. From Minerva McGonagall, this is a victory. Interestingly, it is also a type of magical amphibian, some of which thrive in the ponds below. The amused snort, the piebald snort, and the greater crested snort are differentiated by the size and color of warty knobs growing on their toe knuckles.

The toe knuckle is another creature entirely.

"I've had enough Übermenschen for one lifetime, I think," Minerva observes. The champagne is dry. It pairs well with the company.

"I'll drink to that." And another flute of champagne drifts up from the fountains below.

"I always have to be the sidekick, anyway," Minerva says.

"Not to me, you don't. That is definitively not how the power dynamic works in this relationship."

"If you say so," Minerva drains her glass and tosses it out over the treetops, where a Slovenian pygmy dragon glides out to catch it in silver talons and wing it away to wherever old champagne flutes go to die.

"Unless, of course, you like that sort of thing," Hermione says, "In which case – go fetch me another drink, woman."

"And ye get tae fuck."

 _You see, there's always something new to learn,_ Hermione thinks. _For example, this stuff stings like hell when it shoots out your nose._

Minerva stares serenely out over the forest canopy.

"Right, Hermione says, when normal breathing functions have returned, "I'm all bucked up. Let's go face this fucking victory, shall we?"

A polite "you first" gesture from expressive hands. "Where you lead," Minerva says.

* * *

Department of Mysteries, London, 1951

* * *

"Tea," Minerva announces. The tray follows her into Jane's office, as it has every day in the two weeks since the time vortex took Jane away and spit her back out again. Two weeks of uneasy glances, whispers, robe-rustling in the halls of power, and ominous silence from the head office. Jane is on lockdown, house arrest, really, and the days of sneaking her out for a bit of burgling are well over.

"You don't have to bring me tea, Minerva," Jane tells her.

"I'm sure that means 'thank you' where you come from," Minerva answers. She serves the tea without a wand. She is sure that tea prepared by hand tastes better than tea quick-brewed with a heating charm.

"Thank you. You don't have to bring me tea, Minerva. You're the lead researcher. Delegate, if you need to."

"Don't I have enough to do without having to think of a new excuse to spend time with you every blessed day? How do you expect me to get any work done?"

Jane takes a big swallow of tea and makes appreciation noises. "Point taken," she says at last.

They drink and eat in easy silence. Jane has asked for a particular type of biscuit with her tea. Minerva has lain waste to nearly the entire tin in just five days. She makes a mental note to buy Jane more ginger newts on her way to meet Albus this evening. "How long did it take you," she asks, "to notice the pattern?"

"Almost two years," Jane admits.

"Two?"

"Yes. The first months were so chaotic, I was lucky to locate writing materials or record events. Pop, pop, pop. Sometimes I'd go forward and stay long enough to get my bearings or get something to eat. Other occasions, I just blanked out. Gone, with no awareness of being gone. One minute it was late summer and the next it was winter."

"And you'll not tell me where you were? It must have taken some doing to avoid accidents. Time-travel splinching sort-of-thing?"

"I was far away. Somewhere safe. I found a place that did not change much within my event window. When I finally discovered the rhythm method, I was able to put the predictability of the pattern to use."

"Event window?" Minerva asks. It is not the first time she has asked. It is one of the most interesting clues in this mystery.

"Just under thirty years. I'm sorry, but I can't be more precise. No more back than that and no more forward than now. Although I don't think I ever got close to now. It's like a wound spring, I think. It wears down. I was finally dumped in 1949 and had to wait out the last few years."

"So you've said."

Jane shoves a long roll of parchment across her desk toward Minerva. It is covered in calculations. "Here, what do you make of this?"

"Hint, please?"

"I'm finding a function that fits both time and distance. The farther back in time I was, the closer I could come to London. The farther away from Britain I got, the closer I could come to the present time. Someone – I believe that the timeline itself was trying to keep me away from the vicinity of my exit point, both in time and miles."

Minerva chews a ginger newt and rolls this idea around in her head. _Someone?_ Finally, she says, "Dumbledore wants me to find out why the funnel cloud moved from the geometrical center of the dancers, to you. He thinks it will be significant in time travel and in your defense."

"I think it's because I'm an attractive nuisance," Jane tells her.

"Of course you are," Minerva replies, "But why should that work on anything but me?"

* * *

"Come now, Minister! It's ridiculous on the face of it. Palau? Tierra Del Fuego? Rasmusenland? How likely is it that Puckle only found herself in places so remote, no word of warning could be sent us in time to avoid this, hmm, this infestation? This infection?"

"And yet, Elphinstone, those places have confirmed her presence, and her help in preventing the infiltration of imposters among them."

"Meanwhile, she may have allowed us to be overrun with enemies. And she has shown herself to be reckless, aggressive, importunate in the extreme. How can we give her shelter?"

"If she is what you believe she is, how can we let her out of our sight?"

Albus Dumbledore fancies he can hear ticking, like a clock, though there is no clock in this room. Wilhelmina Tuft keeps a glass timepiece, sand rushing from top to bottom with a faint hiss. The ticking, he thinks, comes from Elphinstone Urquart's ever-narrowing mind.

"Albus," Elphinstone turns to him, "Make her see sense."

And Albus Dumbledore wonders at the blindness of a man who cannot see the effect of words like that on women like Wilhelmina Tuft. It is as if the world were made of glassy surface, and Urquart sees nothing but his own expectations reflected back at him.

"Albus?" Minister Tuft turns to him. "Make me see sense, please."

He gives her an apologetic grimace on behalf of his sex. "I must tell you that she has great mental strength. She uses it to hide much from me. Parts of her mind are as protected as a Gringotts vault."

"How can we not see the obvious? It is right in front of our eyes, Minister. For the love of god, please take heed."

"Sit down, Elphinstone. You are frazzling my carpet."

"Perhaps," Albus Dumbledore muses, "We might restrict her role. Make it more specific, and put some known quantity in charge of the general project operations?"

"Shame to lose administrative skills like that, but what you suggest is probably prudent. Whom did you have in mind?"

* * *

An origami bird flutters to a landing among the tea things on Jane Puckle's desk, where it narrowly escapes becoming a serviette. Minerva plucks it up and unfolds it. She reads it, closes her eyes, then reads it again. Wordlessly, she hands the memo to Jane.

Jane reads it. Then she carefully folds it back up and stores it upon a stack of such in the top right drawer of the desk. "Well, boss, what are your orders?" She asks Minerva.

Minerva blinks. After that, she blinks. Then, just to be sure, she blinks some more.

"Yoga breath," says Jane.

Minerva inhales deeply through her nose and exhales, slowly, through her mouth. She pushes a plate of dainties toward Jane. "Have a biscuit, Puckle," she says, "Before I eat the whole damned tin."


	12. Gninrael Koob - The One With Cher

WARNING: Cher

* * *

Department of Mysteries, London, December 1952

* * *

Ruddlesby is hovering.

He can only maintain it for a few moments at a time, but he's getting better. The part that intrigues Minerva is that, when he can no longer maintain the charm, he appears to fall off of thin air. One might expect him to simply land as if he's been dropped from two inches up. He balances up there, with his arms akimbo, like a tightrope walker.

"What are you reading?" He asks. They are alone in the Think Tank. Minerva has chosen to function in her official supervisory capacity in the same manner she functions in her unofficial supervisory capacity. She's already in charge of the boys. No corner office or big desk will make the tedious pile of paperwork any shorter. So why bother?

Urquart has become irksomely solicitous in his attentions. Other than that, nothing has changed.

Minerva pauses long enough to show Ruddlesby the cover of her _Home Chat_ magazine, which promises to teach her everything she needs to know about hostessing a knitter's circle. He's perfectly able to see the cover without having it waved in front of his face. Minerva suspects that he is bored and needs a new research assignment.

"Please," Ruddlesby says, stumbling to the left after his latest crash. "I may not be the sharpest wand in Ollivanders, but I know you waste none of your time on knitting patterns. You relax by getting more work done. Clever, though. Urquart is tranquilised."

Minerva peers out over the top of her magazine at him. He's intent on his task and fails to be intimidated by her predator gaze. And he is wearing a rugby shirt under his robe.

"What do you know about rates of atomic decay?" She asks him.

"Nothing at all," he answers.

"Pity," she says, and goes on reading.

"Need help?"

"On a topic you know nothing about?"

"You might explain it to me," he offers. "And explain it to yourself while you're about it."

She lays the magazine on the desktop and waves away the glamour with her wand. Alternate text appears. It is smaller, denser, and has far fewer illustrations.

"Wizard!" Ruddlesby proclaims.

* * *

"I am Hermione Granger," she says to the ceiling above her bed. But she is no longer sure she believes it. She's a prisoner, both in this place and in this time. Was it meant to last this long? Was it meant to happen at all? Will she get back?

She's never questioned it before. The thought is like ice water down the spine.

But there's no guarantee, is there? In her timeline, the turner is invented at some point in the next few years. Does she survive long enough to use it? Would Minerva allow her to go without knowing she'd return?

Absolutely, if lives depend on it. She would, and will, and has.

Hermione Granger is losing her old life. The memories slip away. Age and time are ravenous.

She closes her eyes and tries to form a picture of Minerva the last time they were together. There was a kiss goodbye in the library at home. She can make herself see that library the way it will be on that day. Minerva with her serious face, which isn't unhappy, just solemn in repose. And each morning, each morning she sends Hermione away, never knowing which morning might be the last.

Another day, then, one a few years ago and a million years from now.

 _Hermione moves herself carefully off her lover so she might see the long, lovely body gloriously open before her—now Minerva_ _is_ _the altar._

 _Escaping wisps of black and silver hair frame her face. Tufts of silver hair frame the incandescent pink juncture of her thighs. Slender ankles move restlessly on either side of Hermione's knees. Minerva waits. Watches. Inscrutable and catlike. Impatient and amused. Trembling and aroused. Ragged intake of breath and thrust of chin. Bravada? Challenge?_

 _Hermione's lips curl into a slow smile. She inhales once more, deeply, and growls at the womanly scent that fills her. She strokes a silky thigh, turns her head to kiss a bent knee. When Minerva reaches up to brush curls away from Hermione's forehead, Hermione catches the hand. She kisses the palm. She playfully sucks each fingertip. Then she places Minerva's long fingers down among the silver tufts, trails the fingertips lightly along a swelling ridge of pink._

 _"Show me," she says._

 _Hermione has not known that it is possible to blush with that part of the body, but Minerva manages it. The tinge of pink spreads across her outer lips and colors her belly, her breasts, her lovely face. Oh, this is heavenly. The sexual sophisticate has gone shy._

 _But it is only a flicker, a moment, and Minerva dips her long middle finger down the swelling cleft. She shudders. Her eyelashes flutter closed as she plunges into herself, lifting to meet the thrust. And it is only the faint sound of Minerva's voice that makes it possible for Hermione to rip her gaze away. Minerva's closed eyes have not created distance, Hermione realizes. They are a gift. Minerva is moaning Hermione's name. She is pleading, repeating a refrain of desires as invocation of Hermione herself._

 _This is how Minerva touched herself before she dared touch Hermione._

" _Oh, love," Hermione breathes, "Yes."_

* * *

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Christmas, 2016

* * *

"Hi," Hermione says.

Headmistress Minerva McGonagall does not respond to _hi_. Except, of course, with The Look.

Hermione, who is hurrying up the front steps, hands in pockets against the cold, cheeky grin on her face against the chill, doesn't even slow down.

"Yeah. Doesn't work anymore," she says as she passes Minerva on her way into the warmth of the castle. Okay, the relative warmth of the castle.

"And happy Christmas to you, too!" Minerva calls after her. Hermione slows down enough for Minerva to catch up on the grand staircase. "To what do we owe the honour?"

"The children are with their father and his next victim until the New Year," Hermione says, "And I've taken a flat in Hogsmeade."

"And you need - holiday companionship?"

"I need a library."

"Of course."

Hermione turns up the stairs and continues her semi-sprint. "A castle full of books all to myself!"

Minerva refuses to hurry. She catches up with Hermione again outside the locked library doors. The great iron keys rattle in Minerva's pockets.

"Ah, here comes my chatelaine, now," Hermione says. She may be pouting a bit. The locked door has failed to open, even to her formidable magic.

"Quite," Minerva says, dangling the key and its ring from her elegant fingers.

"Am I old enough to poke around the restricted section, Professor?" Hermione asks.

Minerva stops. It is a small hesitation in the otherwise fluid movement that unlocks the arched wood doors. "We'll see," she replies.

Fortunately, Hermione takes this for wit.

They enter the sanctum together. The flame-free lanterns, sensing their presence, burst to life. Hermione hugs herself.

Then she hugs Minerva.

It is a gesture of pure enthusiasm, with Hermione's arms tucked under Minerva's, and a bit of bouncing on the balls of her feet that is just short of a dance. Minerva is surprised to realise that Hermione, an apparently short woman, could easily lift her off the floor if she were of a mind to do so.

"Oh!" Minerva says. Then she feels like a tit, because she is a schoolteacher who has been unexpectedly hugged and said, "Oh!"

* * *

"Interesting holiday reading," Minerva says.

Hermione has trundled her selections to Minerva's office before taking them back to her flat.

Minerva wants to record her selections in a ledger. "Or face a wroth and woozy Pince on Boxing Day," she declaims.

"You might pop round, if you've the energy, after you've tucked up your other Christmas cast-offs. Bring your own book," Hermione says.

Minerva is running a long finger over the spine of one selection, bound in Ministry blue, which makes it one of the codices that contain the wizarding laws of the land. Her silence is a question, and, though it is not quite The Look being aimed at her, Hermione gives in to Minerva's need to have a little bit of control in her own domain.

"They record my selections at the Ministry, too. Especially when I wander into those – currently - unenforced laws that no one has quite got round to binning."

Minerva moves one page at a time through the book. Her fingers don't quite touch the paper. She reads:

"Kneeling, with right hand placed over the wand, the candidate makes an unbreakable vow that he is not of either Muggle or Squib extraction. Then the candidate provides the names of his parents and grandparents, as well as places of birth. Two delegates of the council then research the information to make sure it is truthful. If the investigation has to be carried out of Ministry jurisdiction, a person, not necessarily a member of the council, is appointed to examine the witnesses appointed by the candidate. This researcher shall receive a sum per diem according to the rank of the person, the distance traveled and the time spent. Having collected all the reports, the secretary or the notary must read them all to the council and a vote shall decide whether the candidate is approved. A simple majority is sufficient…"

"I see," Minerva says.

* * *

Department of Mysteries, London, December 1952

* * *

"I say," Ruddlesby says. Minerva has several different magazines spread out on the tables, each festooned with many torn-parchment placemarkers among the pages. Ruddlesby is helping Minerva make a cross-referenced index of information she believes to be important. "McGonagall, this is all vital. It's also contraband here in the land of Herr Uberpint, isn't it?"

"I suppose."

"If he got hold of this and found it was Puckle's doing, well, we might not be able to index fast enough. You see what I mean?"

"We hide most of it, most of the time," Minerva tells him. She taps one end of her falcon quill against her lips.

"But now that the Ministry has gone full rat terrier, I, just, well, I think hiding things is like waving a red cape in front of an erumpet."

She looks at him expectantly, feather paused just under her pointed chin.

"But there's one place not even the Ministry has the power to search, isn't there?"

She nods. The Restricted Section at Hogwarts.

"And you are Dumbledore's favorite dance partner," he reminds her.

And Minerva notices that he has been balancing on two inches of thin air for more than an hour.

* * *

32 Fuddlebum Lane, Hogsmeade, Christmas 2016

* * *

A toasty fire, a reading pile tall enough to be structurally unsound, a bottle of good red, an overstuffed chair, a late 90s technobeat emanating from the kitchen—

Blast. How did that last bit get in there?

Hermione drains the wine from her glass, throws her head back over the stuffed arm of her stuffed chair and contemplates her ceiling. She knows how that last bit got in there. She made Freddy and Teddy help her move house. And, like bright blue morning glories, once those two get tendrils somewhere, no amount of digging will ever root them completely out.

A disco ball appears on the very patch of ceiling she contemplates. A pink light with no discernible source shoots glittering polka-dots all over the room. A smooth, oil-slick, auto-tuned voice joins the shimmering musical montage. It says, "Ladies, gentlemen, and Aunties! Are you ready? Are you steady? Are you fully clothed? Are you absolutely not _in flagrante delicto_ with someone we didn't know about?

Deep breath. "Yes, Love," Hermione shouts over the music.

"Then prepare yourself for the Let's-Cheer-Up-Aunt-Hermione-Just-In-Case-She-Misses-Us-Christmas-Panto!"

And then, not one, but _two_ pink-haired divas slink onto the makeshift stage. One of them is wearing Angelina's best pair of Jimmy Choo's. Well, that _engorgio_ charm is coming along nicely.

 _No matter how hard I try_

(step, pose, step)

 _You keep pushing me aside_

(shimmy, shuffle, tons of shoulder)

 _And I can't break through_

(twirl, turn, toss hair)

 _There's no talking to you-oo!_

The turn-and-toss brings both young men face to face with Headmistress Minerva McGonagall, who is seated much more conventionally than Hermione, _Transfiguration Today_ in lap, tumbler of brandy in hand, but in an equally overstuffed chair.

To their credit, they barely miss a whump-whump.


	13. Edulretni Diuqs - TOWT Poetry

A/N: No nudity. Some Sondheim.

* * *

Department of Mysteries, London, February 1953

* * *

From The Desk of Jane Puckle

Headmistress,

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world. I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.

Not mine, of course. Do you remember reading this to me for the first time? It was on that old purple thing in your office, where we made a nest of books for ourselves and shared minor passions because we couldn't admit to the major ones, maybe not even to ourselves. I fell in love with you on that sofa. I fell in love with your weary face and your wary eyes and your thick braid and your thin shoulders. You were so beautiful it broke my heart. The thing is, I'm only just realizing it now, when It's too late to tell you.

So I'll hide this note safely among the stolen volumes you are about to hide in the Hogwarts Restricted Section. You know the ones.

When I die, this note will wake up and find its way to you. Or I'll find my way home and tell you myself, you old fool. We could have saved ourselves so much grief.

I saw them. Didn't learn a thing from them, until now.

I love you.

Jane.

PS. Ruddlesby is in love with you. He is a sweet boy. I hope you gave him a tumble.

* * *

Office of the Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, February 2017

* * *

" _Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink_

 _Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;_

 _Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink_

 _And rise and sink and rise and sink again;_

 _Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,_

 _Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;_

 _Yet many a man is making friends with death_

 _Even as I speak, for lack of love alone._

 _It well may be that in a difficult hour,_

 _Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,_

 _Or nagged by want past resolution's power,_

 _I might be driven to sell your love for peace,_

 _Or trade the memory of this night for food._

 _It well may be. I do not think I would."_

* * *

"Edna St. Vincent Millay," Hermione says, "Drink."

"Drat," Minerva tells her, after draining the liquor in her glass. "I thought I had you with that one. You now."

* * *

" _The spider, dropping down from twig,_

 _Unfolds a plan of her devising,_

 _A thin premeditated rig_

 _To use in rising."_

* * *

A coruscating fire lights the room, equal parts eerie and merry on a February night. A bright moon and a thick layer of snow make it worth the while to leave the shutters open at the windows, but the chill void must be fed with heat or it will take its tribute out of Minerva's flesh. She sits on one end of a large sofa. Pillows ease the ache in her back. Her feet are on the floor and her hands clutch the bottle, arrested mid-tilt, by Hermione's challenge.

* * *

" _And all that journey down through space,_

 _In cool descent and loyal hearted,_

 _She spins a ladder to the place_

 _From where she started."_

* * *

Hermione is long and louche at the far end of the sofa. She's propped up on pillows, too. Minerva has not asked if any part of her body hurts. There is only so much one may safely discuss in a darkened room. Hermione's right leg is bent at the knee and her left foot rests perhaps a handspan away from Minerva's thigh. But as she recites, Hermione pulls both feet under her and rolls forward, easies her way closer on hands and knees, just close enough to finish the dying lines of the poem in a wholly self-satisfied whisper, close enough now for Minerva to feel.

* * *

" _Thus I, gone forth as spiders do_

 _In spider's web a truth discerning,_

 _Attach one silken thread to you_

 _For my returning"_

* * *

Then she abruptly falls back into her former position and waits for Minerva's answer.

Minerva's answer is somewhat delayed by the fact that she has stopped breathing.

She doesn't realize at first, as she reluctantly composes her next words, that she has wrapped a hand around Hermione's stockinged foot and gently squeezed.

"Have you been at the Restricted Section? Without asking?"

The foot is slowly, gently, inexorably, pulled away from Minerva's grasp. Hermione tucks her knees against her chest. She is a tight ball on the other end of the sofa. "I am Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Professor McGonagall. Why do I need your permission to see books you keep in a secondary school?"

"Because I am the headmistress of this secondary school, Hermione."

"Ipse dixit, then?"

"May I assume from the retreat to Latin that the answer is yes?"

"May I assume from the retreat to authority that you are hiding something?"

Minerva sets the glass decanter on the side table with great care, as if to specifically avoid flinging it across the room. "Let me explain something, Deputy Head Granger. This is my shout. I set the boundaries. You respect them. You gave me your word. I gave you my trust. And you _violated_ it."

"Seriously? Violated? This is a library, Minerva, not your maidenhead. I need un-restricted access to references for laws concerning centaurs and merpeople and all the others."

"Badly enough to justify deceit?"

"There is no bloody deceit. I needed a book. You were not here to personally retrieve it for me - as you apparently have to do because I can't be trusted with your precious knitting pattern collection - so I lifted the wards, found the books myself and took them home to read. This isn't about you. And, yes, since you brought it up, I do need them badly enough to justify a tiptoe through your pissing territory because we are talking about lives, Minerva. Is your pride more important than the fact that those intelligent beings are still, arguably, _livestock_ in the eyes of the law?"

Oh, cold night. The void is winning. Minerva sees the fire but the warmth has been ripped from her bones, left a mechanical construct of gears and levers in its place. She is utterly still as she listens to the words being flung at her, while Hermione stomps about the room looking for shoes and other items discarded barely an hour ago, things randomly dropped along a familiar trajectory, as one sheds clothing along the path to a hot bath after a long, hard day.

* * *

 _One who keeps tearing around_

 _One who can't move…_

Now, who wrote that?

* * *

"Did you know that it is still legal to hunt centaurs? Hunt! The only restrictions have to do with weaponry, and the size of the prey. Nobody from the Ministry has been able to locate any centaur in over a year. And none of our naturalists can find an acromantula, Minerva, neither in Borneo nor here. And nobody tracks these things. There's no budget. The Death Eaters might have slaughtered every one of them."

 _Just two weeks ago_ , Minerva remembers, _the torches burned_. The old centaurs leave fruits and woven gifts for Minerva still, even though she's no longer their midsummer goddess. She is the only human many a wild one out there has ever known. The snow burns her bare feet in the years when Spring comes late, but the responsibility is great, and she cannot fail.

"If anybody gave a damn, we could have done something. What happened? And whatever it was, I've no way to make sure it won't happen again, to anyone. No laws. Nothing. How long have they been gone? Ten years? Twenty?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"Twenty."

"How do you—"

The question dies on Hermione's lips. She knows the answer, Minerva clearly sees. And just as clearly, Hermione sees that finishing the question will mean she has to _know_ the answer.

Minerva drags her gaze from the dark hole her eyes have burned in the carpet, drags herself up to receive Hermione's horrified regard. Now, they are both still.

"I killed them."

"You—" Hermione covers her mouth with one hand and clutches at her belly with the other. "You—"

"Killed them."

"All of them?"

"All of them."

"Oh my god. Oh my god," Hermione slowly backs away from Minerva in the darkened room.

"They hunt children, Hermione," Minerva says, and is shocked to hear the hurt in her own voice.

Hermione stops, drops the hand from her mouth. The effort it takes to keep from shouting gives her voice a serrated edge. "So do doxies, Minerva. And tigers. And polar bears. So would a tabby cat, if I were small enough for you to overcome. Nature works like that."

"Yes."

"No! It isn't enough to be top predator. To be human is to make ourselves more than that. To find a way. To make room."

The gears and levers inside Minerva spark to life. They launch her across the gulf in one and one-half steps. "Not MY home. Not MY children."

The bright winter light casts black bands across Hermione's face. She turns slowly away from the light. Away from Minerva. She spits, "Where the hell is my other shoe?"

Fingers close around the back of a neck. "Allow me," she growls.

* * *

Something like a shotgun goes off next to Hermione's ears. Then she is yanked from the world by a hook in her spine, and she lands hard on the rocky dirt outside the castle grounds. By the time she is able to check her forward momentum and spin round, Minerva is gone.


	14. Cincip - TOWT Boot

A/N: Greengrass and Smythe want you to know that they are well, and will fill us in on the rest of the story after NEWTs in June. Study hard, Lads.

* * *

Office of the Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, February 2017

* * *

Boot. Black boot, good quality, modern in style, too modern and too small to be Minerva's, lying on the office floor as if it has been flung aside, fully in sight, so it cannot be accidental. Just one boot.

All else in Minerva's office is in the usual state of careful dishevelment. The usual books are left open to the usual places at their usual odd angles amid the usual faded sofa cushions.

All right.

Blah, blah, blah Minerva is talking and Hooch is half-listening as she stands before the desk of the Headmistress. Hooch stands. Minerva sits. It isn't a power play, or if it is, it's a terribly silly one on Minerva's part. Hooch generally prefers to stand if there's no compelling reason to do otherwise.

"Mara?"

Right, then. The portraits are silent. Most are sleeping, but many of the others are pulling odd faces. Yes, someone has been using the Tuft Twiddle, and the portraits are struggling to speak in spite of the silencing charm. Dumbledore is composed, but expectant. Snape glowers, arms crossed across his chest, no sign of struggle on his face – but then he would never show such weakness – with nothing but an eyeroll to acknowledge Hooch's scrutiny. Difficult to say, then. Snape always looks like that.

"Mara!"

"Hmm?"

"What have I just said to you?"

"That you want to take Greengrass and Smythe off the squad and possibly other things because they've been buggering in the equipment room, which I'm obviously not going to let you do. And you've not mentioned whether it was consensual, which means you couldn't be arsed to find out, which is something I will do. And you haven't mentioned whether they were using a condom, which means you did not find that out either, so I'll take care of it as well. I'll throw in Dumbledore's sexual ethics lecture for free. Anything else, Headmistress?"

The charged look that passes between them is, somewhat paradoxically, companionable. Each of the nineteen varieties of exasperation now present in this room has been felt by Minerva McGonagall and Xiomara Hooch before, uncountable times, and with unconquerable affection.

"Give my love to Poppy," Minerva says.

"As often as she'll let me, every evening between 9 pm and midnight for thirty-two years, which that little map of yours clearly shows. Ta," she says. Then, instead of taking her usual straight line for the door, she walks over to the out-of-place boot Minerva has been stubbornly ignoring, scoops it up, drops it into the pocket of her robe, and leaves the office without a backward glance.

It had to have been driving Minerva mad. Hmm.

* * *

"Why won't Xiomara Hooch allow you to bugger in the equipment room?"

Dumbledore's first words when Minerva releases the silenced portraits take her entirely by surprise. It is the second thing that has astonished her in under a minute.

"Pardon?"

"Hooch said she obviously will not let you bugger in the equipment room. Has there been a change in policy?"

The tension in Minerva's shoulders creeps up the back of her neck and seizes her painfully by the temples.

"Syntax is not her strength, Albus."

"There's a _tax_ on that now?"

* * *

Quidditch Pitch, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, July 1953

* * *

"This is a terrible idea Minerva," Hermione yells to be heard above the roar of the wind buffeting the flying shield charm, "We've got to go back!"

"Too dangerous and too late!" Minerva answers.

Hermione knows she is right, but the black panic isn't admitting logic right now and her hands grip the broom handle tightly enough to drive splinters into the skin. The time-skips are rare, now. They are predictable, a few seconds at most, and Hermione has learned to feel their onset like the coming of a sneeze. _The calculations add up. The calculations add up._ She repeats the words in her thoughts like a prayer. _The calculations add up. Oh, please let me have remembered to carry all the twos._

* * *

"I've got you!" Minerva cries, in response to the stiffening body in front of her on the broomstick. She's got one arm firmly around Jane's waist, their bodies pressed tightly together, their thighs in tight vees and nested like teaspoons. The sky is the emptiest place, so chances are slim that Jane will hit an obstruction during her two-second leap into the future. Minerva must maintain a steady acceleration ( _a_ ) in order for the experiment to work. And since acceleration is also deceleration, she will have the most control if she reaches a certain velocity (X) and, at the right moment, applies a simple braking charm of measurable and known magnitude (Y).

Jane can maintain possession of a broomstick she is carrying during a time skip, in the same way she can remain clothed. This may or may not prove awkward for Minerva.

And just in case all of that is bollocks, Albus Dumbledore and Wilhelmina Tuft are spotting them from the ground, ready to perform emergency levitation.

The only problem Minerva can see is that she is traveling fast on a hot new broomstick in a thrilling experiment with her beautiful Jane pressed tightly between her legs and orgasm can be quite dangerous during times like these. Which, or course, makes her traitorous body all the more determined to have one.

Here it comes.

And…now!

Minerva brakes. Jane flickers out of existence for a count of just over two seconds. Minerva is braced for the loss and maintains position on the broomstick. Then, just as if they planned it this way, Jane is back on the broom and Minerva's arms are once again tightly around her, and they have jolly well _proven_ that the connection between time travel and the standard apparition formula not only exists, but can be measured and calibrated by, and only by, Minerva McGonagall and Jane Puckle.

Minerva steers them through a wide, slow circle to prepare for descent and she can feel Jane's erratic breathing steady as the two of them meld together as one airborne creature. Minerva's teeth sink just a little into Jane's shoulder when she comes, and Jane risks releasing her grip to rest one hand on Minerva's knee while it happens. The fingers gently squeeze in rhythm with the subtle percussion of Minerva's hips.

 _She knows,_ Minerva thinks. _She can feel this happening to me and it is all right._

She drops a grateful kiss on the place where crescent moon indentations are forming and fading beneath Jane's flying robe.

* * *

The Three Broomsticks, Hogsmeade, February 2017

* * *

"Well now that's sorted," Madam Hooch tells the pair of seventeen-year-olds sitting on the bench opposite her at the Broomsticks. She finds that a mild sedative and semi-public setting helps in these situations. "Go on and be decent men or I'll hunt you down and teach you some more." She tips a small toast of ale in their direction and drains the tankard. The talk has been shameless enough for them to laugh as they comply, but effective enough that they waste no time in doing so.

Outside, she takes the boot from her robe and places it on the cobbles. "Go home," she says. It strides off. Hooch follows.

Shameless. It's a word with two definitions that mean exactly the same thing. Hooch has a natural mastery of both.

* * *

Quidditch Pitch, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, July 1953

* * *

The conquering heroes touch down lightly on the Quidditch pitch. Elphinstone Urquart watches from underneath the stands, wrapped in shadows. There they all are, shaking hands and congratulating each other.

Ruddlesby is boldly embracing Minerva.

 _I should have known._

He should have known when that silly Tuft woman refused to heed his warnings. Now it is clear that Jane Puckle's corruption of common, decent wizarding culture goes much deeper than one Ministry Department.

Albus Dumbledore is with them, as well, with all his blathering about equality. Justice. Promoting witches to do wizard's work and Muggle-borns to lord it over old families and championing the so-called rights of the dependent races.

Oh, it sounds grand. Freedom for all. But what actually happens when the near-humans have no one to look after them? Children want to run the house, but no responsible father allows them to do so, and for their own good. Common sense.

He's got the smoking gun in his hands. The betrayal burns in his gut. Knitting patterns? Celebrity gossip? What do they take him for? Wholesome-looking Muggle magazines can be sent all over the world, a red net of evil invisibly woven by those who cannot create, and so must steal the work of free men. From the Ministry to Hogwarts. From Hogwarts to Moscow.

 _The enemy comes from within._

* * *

Fuddlebum Lane, Hogsmeade, February 2017

* * *

"Madam Hooch!"

"Just Hooch, please, Granger."

"All right. Would you like me to open the door again so I can exclaim the correct name in surprise?"

"Another day. Does this belong to you?"

The black boot bounces across the threshold of Hermione's flat and comes to rest beside its lifemate. It is an ordinary boot once more.

Hermione opens the door wider and stands aside, so that Hooch can follow the boot inside. Hooch ponders the matched footwear for several seconds. "Were you, by any chance, dancing with a handsome prince in Minerva's office last night when the clock struck twelve?"

Hermione does not answer this question. She looks speculatively at Hooch for a long minute, as if she were sizing her up for a new suit there in the entry hall.

"Offer me some tea, Hermione," Hooch tells her.

Hermione shakes her head as if shaking off a bit of mesmerism. "Tea, Hooch?"

"Yes, please. Put it in an insulated flask and throw some liquor in it. I'd also like sandwiches and a sweet. Enough of everything for two, and put it in a basket."

Hermione opens her door again, takes a good look at the exterior face of it, and closes the door.

"Something wrong?" Hooch asks.

"I thought perhaps my nephews had mounted a Fortnum and Mason sign out there."

"I'll get the food. You get the boots. We'll walk."

* * *

The crocus are two weeks late this year, but they pop their heads up through the snow along the path that leads to a footbridge just outside Hogsmeade. The bridge troll who lives there makes a fair living as a woodwright. Consequently, the stream banks are strewn with comfortable benches and chairs to be had for a reasonable price, as soon as the green willow cures.

The temporary trace Hooch has put on the lads allows her to listen to the conversation they are having as they leg it back up the hill to Hogwarts. She tunes her wand so that Hermione can listen in.

"Hold on, Luv. I've got to look in on a work in progress," Hooch says.

* * *

"That was the dragon's mouth, right there," says Smythe, with a gratifying note of awe in his voice. "Have you read any of the biographies? They say in her day there wasn't a witch who didn't want a bit of her broomstick."

Greengrass, as bold a chaser as Hooch has seen in years, adds, "That old woman banged Celestina Warbeck – during a live radio broadcast. They say no one's ever hit a high note like that, before or since. Shattered crystal sets all over the home counties."

"Think she's talking bollocks about, you know?"

"I reckon she's right about one thing, at least. Old Sourpuss won't give us a minute's privacy until summer, not after this. So we're either all over or we're all in."

* * *

Quidditch Pitch, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, July 1953

* * *

"Hooch!"

Minerva's mystery passenger has spotted her, even as the medi-witches form a defensive line around the woozy witch and spirit her away on foot. There's an empty cot following the scrum. Hooch has the impression that the cot is somehow chasing the one Minerva calls "Jane".

Minister Tuft signals Hooch to hold her position until they are well away.

When Hooch does touch ground, Minister Tuft is saying, "Who else? I sent her a message to meet me privately, so that I might secure her services."

Minerva has slammed shut like a book. Her eyes keep a careful watch on the turf while she waits for clues. Hooch steps forward with her big professional smile and shakes hands with everyone, except Minister Tuft. For her, Hooch gives her most rakish bow and ghosts a kiss upon the fingers of the proffered hand.

 _And that's got the corners of Minerva's mouth twitching a bit, hasn't it?_

"Wotcher, McGonagall," Hooch says, "The Minister explained that you and some of your fellow secretaries from the Unlikely Weather Disturbances Division were planning something potentially fatal on a broomstick and asked would I stand by in case of emergency. Imagine my surprise to find that the Minister for Magic does double duty as one of your quillographers. Sporting of her, hey?"

Every word truth, and not a word violates the unbreakable vow Hooch has sworn with Wilhelmina Tuft.

* * *

Hogsmeade, February 2017

* * *

Bridge troll whistling sounds like water rippling over stones. It is an unexpectedly beautiful sound to be made by one of nature's least comely creatures. Hermione fortifies herself with the hot tea and asks, "Is it true about Celestina Warbeck?'

"I'll tell you someday when you are honestly interested in the answer," Hooch says. "Tough week?"

Hermione stares at the ice, where it melts into the rushing stream along the bank, and doesn't speak.

"Granger, what are your intentions toward my Headmistress?"

"I don't understand the question. And I don't understand what business it is of yours."

"Granger, what are your intentions toward my oldest and dearest friend?"

"Oldest and dearest? Funny she's never mentioned it."

"Do you ever stop talking about yourself long enough to listen?"

"How – "

"If the next words out of your mouth are 'dare you', I will toss you into that stream, young lady."

"Not so young as you think, Hooch. Possibly well over the mark where the balance of power reverses direction."

Hooch snorts.

"This is ridiculous. I have no intentions toward Minerva." Hermione extricates herself from the willow sapling bench and walks away, deftly tap-dancing to avoid the still-green bits that smack at her ankles as she goes.

"It dropped so low in my regard, I heard it hit the ground, and go to pieces on the stones at bottom of my mind, eh?" Hooch says, by way of making conversation. Or so her tone would indicate. "Just a stab in the dark. You were always a bit of a self-righteous prat."

Hermione stops, turns, glares at her.

"Tell me how you lost your boot, Hermione. I will take your secret to the grave and beyond."

Hermione kicks the small rocks along the bank. Then, she shrugs. "We were playing the poetry drinking game last night when," kick, scuff, kick, "When I had to leave suddenly and I could not find my boot by firelight. No particular mystery."

"Lot of Millay?" Hooch asks.

"Mm," Hermione acknowledges, "But it was the E. B. White that, well."

"So, to summarize; you and Minerva were passing St. Valentine's Night alone together at her place, most likely on the single sofa which is the only comfortable furniture in that room, drinking and reciting romantic poetry to one another, all while partially disrobed, and in the dark."

"Don't be - "

"If the word 'ridiculous' passes your lips, it's the stream," Hooch warns.

Hermione waves a hand in grudging surrender.

"And this," Hooch continues. She jumps up from the bench and paces along the bank. She clasps her hands behind her back. "This is when a disagreement of some kind occurs, something involving a pig, or a spider, or a mouse, or possibly a failure to omit needless words. You must leave quite suddenly. And four times since I came to your door you have placed an open palm upon the back of your neck, as you would if soothing or worrying a wound."

 _And Minerva is in a mood no one has seen in some time,_ Hooch privately adds, _not since before the arrival of Granger. Adult, divorced, naggingly familiar Granger._

"The butler did it, Sherlock. Are we through?"

Hooch crosses her arms and regards Hermione, who has adopted a similar posture. They cast long shadows along the bank, and the sudden chill hints at a fast-approaching sunset. "I like you, Granger. Always have, even if you are probably the worst flyer I have ever – "

 _Well now._

Hooch begins again, "Whatever your intentions, if you hurt Minerva McGonagall, I shall rip out your liver and hand it back to you smothered with onions on a plate."

* * *

London, July 1953

* * *

"Close your eyes."

Minerva closes her eyes. Mara has the most comfortable mattress in the world. The bed takes up much of the aerie that is Mara's London home. Professional Quidditch pays rather better than saving the world does.

"Tell me about your Jane, Sweet," Mara says. "You don't have to tell my why she disappeared and reappeared in your arms up there today. Tell me why she risked her life. Tell me why she let you take her up there when she was clearly sick with terror. Were the test results that important? Or were _you_ that important?"

"Nobody else could do her part," Minerva says. She hears Mara's clothing coming off. Minerva is naked, on top of the downy quilts. She is warm, but not too hot. Aroused, but not too needful. Perfect.

"Could anyone else have done your part? Any skilled flyer? Could I have done it? Could Dumbledore have done it?"

Sometimes, one forgets that Xiomara Hooch is Ravenclaw. "I was the least valuable qualified candidate," Minerva replies.

"I don't think so. I think you were the most valuable, at least to Jane. She won't trust a trained medi-witch with a levitating cot. But she trusts you on a supercharged broom." Mara climbs upon the mattress, straddles her, watches her from above.

Minerva opens her eyes to meet that gaze squarely. "And I nearly got us killed. Because being on that broom with her made me selfish. I bit her. I bit her and _satisfied_ myself on her while she was frightened and dependent. I bit her the way I used to do, you know, before I got control of – it."

Minerva closes her eyes again. She wants to pull away from the fingers sliding down her cleft. She tries to clamp her thighs together even more tightly, but that only makes it worse. Mara must feel the sticky flood as it flows from her. "And talking about it has only made you want to do it again," Mara says to her, quietly, questioningly.

"Yes," she breathes.

"Has she reproached you for this?"

"No. No, she _held_ me while it happened."

"Oh, Sweet. You and your Scottish soul, forever taking a lovely idea like 'forgive them, they don't know what they do' and turning it into Presbyterianism."

Mara stretches out above her, supports herself on strong, sinewy arms. She kisses Minerva's forehead and whispers, "Keep your eyes closed, if you like. I am going to drop this," and here, Mara shifts up to brush an alert nipple across Minerva's lips, "into your mouth." The nipple strafes Minerva's mouth again, and then disappears when lips part. "But first, ask your Jane nicely."

"Mara, no," Minerva's mouth pushes up, seeks the nipple tantalizing her from above. "Please," she says.

Mara pulls out of her reach. Minerva's hungry mouth finds nothing to satisfy it. Then Mara once more slowly lowers the nipple to Minerva's lips and asks, "Who am I? Whose is this?"

"Jane," Minerva says, her voice reverent and defiant and very, very deep, "Please, Jane."

* * *

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, February 2017

* * *

"Jane," Minerva says, her voice breaking on the syllable that jolts her awake. In the dream, a love from long ago is filling her mouth, tugging at her hair, making her flesh sting and her heart soar with the flat of a hand, but no. No. Let it fade away. That Jane was fantasy.

 _This Hermione is fact. And I am a fool._


	15. Enoimreh - TOWT Radio

A/N: Transcipts of today's programme are available from the Wizarding Wireless Network, Owl Post 47, Hogsmeade Village

* * *

Click

 _Today in Wizarding Wireless Network News - Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement and Civil War Heroine Hermione Granger (formerly Granger-Weasley) once again disappointed the voting public by denying rumors that she's retreated from London life to prepare for a run at Minister for Magic in 2020. What does the brains and backbone of "Chosen One" and "Boy Who Lived" Harry Potter's resounding victory over the Death Eater army have up her sleeve, if not designs on the Ministry's Top Spot?_

 _Ms. Granger isn't saying, but Tattler Publisher Xenophilius Lovegood observes that the shake-up in leadership at The International Wizengamot leaves many a power position intriguingly open!_

 _And now, in the year that will see Legendary Diva Celestina Warbeck's one hundredth birthday, we dedicate our next song to her new favorite dance partner, Wizard-About-Town Cormac McLaggen! That's right! Sixty years her junior, playboy Cormac has been seen canoodling the charming chanteuse in all Diagon Alley's poshest passion pits!_

* * *

 _After one whole quart of brandy_ _  
_ _Like a daisy I awake_ _  
_ _With no Pepper Upper handy_ _  
_ _I don't even shake_

* * *

Minerva's morning agenda contains the usual items for this time of year. N.E.W.T. applications are complete. Staff have evaluated them, and Minerva has a stack of N.E.W.T. candidates to pair with an evaluator, each of whom has provided a block-schedule of available times.

Potter's Aurors have stepped up yet again. They will evaluate candidates in all subjects except Care of Magical Creatures. Septima Vector will take a break from a busy retirement to give twenty hours to Arithmancy candidates, and Minerva probably won't need all of them.

Minerva's quill makes short work of the easy scheduling.

Now comes Hermione Granger's sixteen hours for Potions and sixteen hours for Transfiguration spread among the candidates who have also declared a sub-topic in integrated Muggle Studies for Potions and Transfiguration, per the curriculum introduced by Miss Granger in the year following Tom Riddle's defeat.

Twenty-four hours for each subject might, possibly, be stretched to suit.

Minerva pulls out a fresh sheet of parchment and sets to work on the formal request for more of Ms. Granger's time.

* * *

 _Love is not a new sensation;_ _  
_ _I've done pretty well, I think_ _  
_ _But this half-pint imitation_ _  
_ _Puts me on the blink_

* * *

The great horned owl taps at her window and is admitted with a wand-flick so practiced that Minerva barely notices her own action until the great horned owl lands on her desk and drops an envelope in ministry blue.

The message inside reads:

 _Dear Headmistress McGonagall,_

 _I know you are neither the nanny nor the executive secretary of my Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement, but since she sees much more of you these days than she sees of me, could you do me the favor of reminding her to send the she-knows-what about the she-knows-who ASAP?_

 _This is a ministry matter, and I know I can rely on your discretion._

 _Cordially,_

 _Kingsley Shackelbolt_

 _Minister for Magic_

* * *

 _I'm wild again_ _  
_ _Beguiled again_ _  
_ _A simpering, whimpering child again_ _  
_ _Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I_

* * *

Minerva pinches the bridge of her nose, then rubs the kink in her neck. The white quill she charms to sign official correspondence scratches furiously away at a stack of embossed envelopes that have colonized the far corner of her desk. She snaps her fingers to summon a tea-tray from the house elves, and as she clears away those missives that have already been signed, she notes that she has just informed a Miss Rose Weasley that she shall be attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in the coming autumn.

* * *

 _Couldn't sleep_ _  
_ _And wouldn't sleep_ _  
_ _Until I could sleep where I shouldn't sleep_ _  
_ _Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I_

* * *

The tea tray arrives with a plate of her favorite ginger newts and a note from the house-elves requesting that the honored Headmistress McGonagall kindly retrieve the article of clothing left under the grand purple sofa in the illustrious Headmistress's office please, and to deposit it in the laundry chute if desired, so as not to risk the insult of any unwary house-elf assigned to clean said office, who has accepted clothing in order to please Lovely Mistress Granger and is proud to wear the school crest but insists that the proprieties be observed, if that is acceptable to the Headmistress.

The scarf Minerva retrieves is not under the sofa, but has fallen behind it. Gryffindor, circa 1963, because its owner values things that are a bit (in her words) _lived-in_. She stares at the length of cloth in her hands for far too long before she trusts herself not to bury her face in the soft fabric and lose herself in the scent. Oranges, musk, sweet flowers, arousal and – warm buttermilk scones.

Minerva decides that the fabric is much too delicate to risk a washing. She carefully folds it, and then sets it on a side table to await brown paper wrapping, some string, the correct address, and a stout owl.

* * *

 _Lost my heart, but what of it?_

 _My mistake, I agree_  
 _You may laugh, but I love it_  
 _Because the laugh's on me_

* * *

Minerva's personal agenda reminds her to owl Boban a request for more of that Stellenbosch Syrah Hermione so enjoyed at Christmas, should he be passing through the southern tip of Africa any time soon. So crossing that off the agenda adds forty or fifty additional seconds of personal time to her schedule. Whatever shall she do to fill it?

* * *

 _Seen a lot_ _  
_ _And I mean_ _ **a lot**_ _  
_ _But now I'm like sweet seventeen a lot_ _  
_ _Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I_

* * *

The self-renewing charm on the Library's copy of _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches_ by Jane Puckle needs recasting, as it does this time each year.

In addition, staff would like to know if there will be a policy meeting following the Greengrass-Smythe incident, in which young Mr. Greengrass and Mr. Smythe were observed holding hands upon their return from an outing to Hogsmeade, then marched arm-in-arm up the grand staircase, after which Mr. Greengrass escorted Mr. Smythe back to the Ravenclaw common room, where he thanked Mr. Smythe for a lovely afternoon, asked if he might have a goodnight kiss, received his (rather passionate) goodnight kiss among a similarly engaged gaggle of Mr. Smythe's housemates, and toed up to his nonplussed Headmistress (who had witnessed the episode while in consultation with the Grey Lady) to declare, "All in!"

Then he strolled back to the Gryffindor common room. Whistling.

Upon due consideration, Minerva replies that she sees no reason to entertain policy against inter-house goodnight snogging on school grounds, especially if the snogger first obtains clear permission from the snoggee before commencement of aforesaid snog.

* * *

 _Vexed again_ _  
_ _Perplexed again_ _  
_ _With luck I can be over-sexed again_ _  
_ _Bewitched, bothered and bewildered am I!_

* * *

 _What a performance! And, of course, our modern ears detect the absence of gender-specific pronouns in Celestina Warbeck's definitive take on this classic of musical theatre! Are the rumors true, do you suppose, that Miss Warbeck recorded this song during a hush-hush fling with a certain young Quidditch star? The lady herself has never tattled. And a beloved Hogwarts Flight Instructress strictly adheres to a gentleman's code. Ah, well! Adoring fans might never -_

Click

* * *

"Oh, I know," Minerva tells the silent radio.

 _I know. I know that I am right. I know that if I had to do it all over again, I'd still not spare a single egg of the great beastie's brood. I know that she's a goosefeather-stuffed, thick-skulled, nose-in-everybody-else's-business, unbaked ass who is so busy legislating compassion that she's nane tae spare for those in sore need. And I know I will find a way to forgive her._

 _She doesn't know what she's doing._


	16. III Sdractsop Hcnerf - TOW Bangkok

A/N: Brown trout. He doesn't really catch them. He keeps the Merpeople supplied with corks and they throw fish in his boat.

* * *

Ministry of Magic, London, September 1953

* * *

Dementors.

Three of them are posted in the black corridor that leads to the Department of Mysteries. They are flanked - not too closely – by two beefy aurors who stand sentinel, still and silent.

Employees arriving for work are kept at the far end of the corridor. No one may pass. No one has any clear idea of what's happening. No explanation is given.

Minerva is locked outside.

Jane is locked inside.

The Ministry itself is on lockdown. No one may leave the premises. Communication is restricted.

Minister for Magic Wilhelmina Tuft is engaged in a staring contest with the tabby cat who is currently (in violation of all physical laws concerning mass) claiming the entire work surface of her French Provincial desk.

* * *

In an office in a cupola high above the hidden world beneath a white palace, a steady stream of owls glide through white limestone arches and drop bound rolls of parchment to the wizards below before gliding out through white limestone arches.

Each roll is snatched from the air by experienced hands.

"Nunavut?"

"Dark."

"Svaalbard?"

"Dark."

"Taos?"

"Dark."

"Socotros?"

"Active!"

* * *

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, September 1953

* * *

In the library wing of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Elphinstone Urquart bombards the great wooden entry door until the ancient oaken timbers shred like balsa wood. He leads a team of aurors across the threshold.

And finds himself pitched headfirst out the Boathouse door. He splashes into the water just ahead of the next man through.

Albus Dumbledore watches from the wooden seat of a nearby rowboat. The cork at the end of his fishing line bobs in the slight turbulence.

* * *

Ministry of Magic, London, March 2017

* * *

Everyone who visits the Minister for Magic is flummoxed to find Kingsley Shacklebolt seated behind a petite French Provincial desk. Kingsley Shacklebolt finds it quite useful to begin all first-time conversations with a flummoxed person.

But this isn't Hermione Granger's first visit. She stares out the multi-paned glass window, soothed by the inexorable rotation of the giant steel circle outside. Shacklebolt pages through her report. Hermione can tell when he gets to _tha_ t page. He grows quiet. The paper rustling stops. His breathing slows. And then, he turns one page back, and reads those paragraphs over again.

* * *

The Leaky Pateela, Uttar Pradesh, September 1953

* * *

In Uttar Pradesh, a tall, athletic witch in formal blacks puts one elbow on an elaborately carved bar and asks the matronly woman seated next to her for help in selecting a good local beverage for a thirsty Seeker.

"Aren't you?" The woman asks, wide-eyed.

"Hooch," says the tall witch, "Xiomara Hooch."

And the Senior Recorder for Inter-Kingdom Magical Correspondence blushes almost as pink as her Sari.

 _This,_ muses Hooch, _is a great game._

* * *

Ministry of Magic, London, September 1953

* * *

Minerva McGonagall is flummoxed.

"That's ridiculous," she says, "This is a coincidence. Or lies. We are allowing that horrible little man to destroy everything we've worked for. He has lost the ability to know the difference between what threatens all of us and what threatens _him_."

Minister Tuft sips her tea and gives Minerva a reproachful shake of the head in the direction of her untouched cup. "The facts are these: Where your father has traveled, Puckle has been. And those places they've both visited are going dark, one by one. No communication, no trace, no nothing. They've become unplottable. The magical expertise of each place has found its way into Project Now and Then. Your project. And we have suffered incursions in our midst, spies deliberately planted in the Ministry at about the time of Puckle's arrival."

"But."

"And, Minister Tuft continues, "A large quantity of Muggle magazines were brought into the Department of Mysteries, and now that large quantity of Muggle magazines has gone again."

"But you can't think—"

"For some reason, the Hogwarts Library is closely guarding a great many knitting patterns."

"Are you hurting her?" Minerva asks.

"Sorry?"

"Are. You. Hurting. Her." Minerva doesn't mean to hiss, but she can't seem to unclench her jaw.

"Puckle?"

"Yes."

"No!"

"Prove it, and I will tell you everything you want to know," Minerva says.

* * *

"Alice Springs?"

"Dark."

"Singapore?"

"Dark."

"Bangkok?"

"Dark."

* * *

Ministry of Magic, London, March 2017

* * *

"Take it out, Granger," Shacklebolt says.

Hermione knows that arguing is pointless. Not that Shacklebolt is a tyrant, for there are few Hermione Granger respects more. But in real politics, the dirty laundry of icons and allies does not get aired in public. Minerva is both icon and ally, and probably a legend for afters. Some part of Hermione's logical mind regrets the waste – very little would prove her case more effectively than the revelation that even magic's most moral has, in the absence of civil law, committed –

She wants to call it an atrocity. She knows it is an atrocity.

Knows it.

But naming it, even in her own mind, feels like slamming the door on something.

She turns. She leans against the windowsill, letting her arms take her weight while her shoulders get pushed up around her ears. "Okay," she says. It is acquiescent, if not quite neutral.

Shacklebolt nods. Then he closes the report and spreads his arms in a gesture that on anyone else would look like surrender, but makes him seem larger and more imposing. "Minerva McGonagall can fall completely to pieces and still be the most competent person in the room. Thank goodness, because she believed you were dead for almost a year. Think about that year. How was it for her? Children suffered – some died – because _she_ could not protect them _._ We all thought it would kill her. And then in the battle, so many more died or were maimed. They were her charges, all of them, even the adults, even the thrice-damned _Death Eaters_ , Hermione."

Hermione is pierced by the high note he hits on _Death Eaters_ before bringing the famously resonant voice once more under control.

"She wasn't sane. She wasn't whole."

* * *

Somewhere Over Siam, September 1953

* * *

The Bangkok Worthy Roosters Fly out of the tropical sun and surround the blinded Harpies before Hooch can wrap her mind around what's happening. Their wands are out and the curses spark from the tips, eager to leap.

"Asnee," she calls out to their veteran Keeper, "What's all this? Nobody's heard a word in more than a week! It's us. You know us. You know me. By my broom, _pee chaai_ , we've come to help, if you'll have us. What is wrong?"

The man hangs his head. Hooch sees that he is trembling and trying to make sure nobody sees that he is trembling. "We are alone," he tells her, "We guard the skies because no one is left. When we returned from the match in Tuaranga, we found," he breathes deep and mumbles something that might be a prayer. "We have murdered ourselves," he says.

* * *

Ministry of Magic, London, September 1953

* * *

"Chandraguthi?"

"Still active."

"Llasa – hold on. Bangkok?"

"It's a distress code! Bangkok's requesting help. It's from the Ministry, no, hold on, it's ours. Blessed St. Helga preserve us, it's Hooch. The Harpies - The Quidditch Team - are at the Bangkok Ministry, and they're using official codes to summon help. Notify the Minister!"

* * *

Thai Square, London, March 2017

* * *

"Pad See Ew or Som Tum?"

"The noodly things," says Harry.

"Noodly things it is. I'll make you a deal."

"Yeah?"

"You don't tell me how you think Ron is and I won't tell you how I think Ron is."

"Thank god. Is that the peanutty thing?"

"Here," Hermione says, and scoops a heap of satay onto Harry's plate.

"Lovely."

The brilliant thing about Harry is that stopping by the Muggle café for some Thai is not an ordeal. There's none of that sheltered pureblood naivete to shepherd through the crisis of manually operated chopsticks.

The other brilliant thing about Harry, Hermione believes, is that his complete lack of stirring conversation gives everyone time to chew. It's relaxing.

"Everything going well? Are you, say, suddenly not speaking to McGonagall or anything?"

The bustling proprietress bustles over to their table and bustles away any dish that may even be temporarily abandoned. And Hermione is thinking - _pink tablecloth, glass top, gilt lace at the windows, small carved elephants on the chair backs, artificial plants in blue lacquered pots separating each table's zone of influence from the neighbor's. And I am inventorying my surroundings. I wonder why I am doing that? Oh, right. Shock._

Harry leans over the table, "Auror, remember?"

"Harry, what do you really know about Minerva?"

"She's the mother of Voldemort's secret half-veela love child."

"Harry."

"All right - nothing. I mean, I know her. She's a brick. You know more than any of us. Look, when I was young, Molly and Minerva were the only way I had of knowing that women are supposed to be good things. Who else was there? And Minerva was everything I knew about the intelligence and, well, the good kind of softness."

"Softness? Minerva McGonagall?"

"She was in her nightdress a lot. I mean, every time I had a crisis, there she was without a bra, in a dressing gown, just swinging all free and soft and, you know, to-the-rescue."

"Soft swinging breasts to the rescue. I see."

"Don't think about it. Sexuality is messy. Look, whatever's happened - and there's a good chance it has to do with you being a judgmental twat because, of course it does - the point is, so what if she's not perfect? What if she's just a person? What kind of person is she?" He spears a neglected spring roll from her plate to dredge in leftover peanut sauce and doesn't wait for her to answer, "She's the best," he says, "She's just the fucking best, isn't she?"

* * *

Ministry of Magic, London, September 1953

* * *

Wilhelmina Tuft and Minerva McGonagall stare out the large, multi-paned window of Minister Tuft's office. Jane Puckle is out there, politely, but most urgently, knocking on the section of glass that unlocks to open about a hinge. She appears to be balancing on thin air. She is joined in this by Ruddlesby.

Minister Tuft considers changing her facial expression, but in the end decides that she ought to save that option for whatever even more astonishing development this day might hold for her.

"Do open the window, McGonagall," she says.

Minerva does, and quickly drags both Ruddlesby and Puckle inside.

Puckle does a sort of rolling dive onto the carpet and stays where she lands, curled up in a little ball and fighting to breathe normally. Ruddlesby glides in and alights with a jump to the left.

Jane makes herself sit up. Minister Tuft can see pain flicker across her face, too fast for the young people to see. Though most of the visible distress comes from fear, she judges.

"Tell her," Jane says, between gasps.

Ruddlesby puts his hands in the great pockets of his unfashionable robes and says, "Well, it seemed to me that if every particle in the universe is also a wave, then one ought to be able to surf it."

Minister Tuft holds up one hand. "Stop," she says. "Put a bookmark on the word 'surf' and I'll come back round to you. Puckle?"

Jane nods her thanks. "Tell her about the magazines," she explains. "All about them. How we made them, what's in them, why we felt we had to hide them, everything." Then she surrenders to gravity, stretching supine on the thick Persian Carpet beneath her. "Does this thing fly, Tuft?"

"I don't think so," The Minister answers, rather enclined to let the small informality pass. This time.

"Ah, good. Also, whiskey," and she holds up her hand as if in anticipation of an imminent shot glass.

Which is when Minister Tuft notices that Jane's other arm is broken.


	17. II Sdractsop Hcnerf - TOWT Raid

A/N: Warning - Chess _and_ Bangkok

* * *

Palace of Magicians, Bangkok, 1953

* * *

"Asnee, you're the captain. Find everyone you can - the survivors, those among your ministers who were traveling, honored elders, promising young people - and form your team. My people are coming, and they will help you. But if you aren't prepared, they may help you out of everything you have."

"You will be here?"

"I will not. The Harpies play the Dragon's Teeth in five days, and no one has heard a peep out of Singapore in more than nine."

"I fear what you may find."

Hooch peers out beyond the carved wood shutters at the street below. In spite of her keen eyes, it's the sound that gets her attention. The creaking cart wheels. The chanting monks. The shuffling of bare feet. And, above all, the roar of cremation fires.

* * *

Office of Wilhelmina Tuft, Ministry of Magic, London, 1953

* * *

"But we warned Bangkok. They identified the infiltrators. It was the same method used here, quite obvious, once you know what to look for. The investigation was thorough," Jane Puckle says through gritted teeth. In her haste to escape the wizards who searched her flat, she forgot that Dementors compress much more than witches do. She's broken an arm and bruised some ribs in a ventilation shaft.

"Yes. Quite thorough," agrees Minister Tuft, "And once the apparatus was up and running, the lack of targets did not, could not, stop it. Every old grudge became evidence. Every enemy became a suspect. First, fingers start pointing. Then wands. They destroyed themselves from within. Clean, simple, efficient – it is the strategy of a virus. Trigger mayhem and let the body kill itself in response."

"You do good work, for a politician," Jane Puckle tells her. Minister Tuft has set the bone and secured the arm. The young people watch, one much more closely than the other. If McGonagall were in cat form, her tail would be twitching a jagged non-rhythm.

"Minister, there are guards at your door," Ruddlesby observes. The Minister has noticed that this one gets away with saying important things by appearing to state the obvious. Yes, there are guards there. No, she isn't sure they will let her out of her office. Forcing the issue to find out would be the wrong move at this point.

"Of course. Urquart placed them there for my protection," she tells him, checking the last of her wandwork on Puckle's abused ulna.

"From whom?"

"You would have to ask him, although I highly recommend that you not do so," she answers. Then she tells Puckle, "I trained as a mediwitch. When I was a girl, having professional ambitions and training as a mediwitch were the same thing. Allow me to apologise in advance if I have maimed you further."

She searches Puckle's expression, and is relieved to see that she has understood everything that was just said. And what was unsaid.

"Get comfortable, Puckle. The elves are bringing strong tea. And several meals, if necessary." Yes. She has understood that as well.

Ruddlesby tends the flock of owls that have become trapped in this office. Urquart is not concerned with who might get into the Ministry, just so long as no one gets out. The owls sent from the aerie have delivered their messages to the Minister. She has, however, no way of acting on that intelligence.

A house elf pops into the office. It is laden with three stacked trays filled with coffee, tea, cream, sugar, sandwiches, sweets, a selection of cheeses, and two kinds of quiche. Ruddlesby helps the elf to settle the food trays, and to keep the owls away from it.

"Eat, you two. You will need your strength," Minister Tuft tells McGonagall and Ruddlesby

Jane Puckle is smiling – possibly grimacing – approval.

Elphinstone Urquart is, at heart, an idealist. His ideals are vile, but they serve a useful purpose. They make him see what he expects to see and oblivious to anything outside his worldview. Which is why the bloody fool went off to lay siege to Hogwarts without bothering to hobble the house elves. After all, a house elf is a kind of talking household appliance to a mind like his. Why would they need to be locked down with the rest of the Ministry?

"Feck, my dear, I have several important messages for you to deliver. You must complete your task, no matter what anyone else might tell you to do. You must not reveal your task, no matter who demands that you do so. I am your master. Do you understand?"

Jane Puckle's expression has gone rather sour. _Interesting._

"Yes, Minister," Feck replies. The elf, whose gender Minister Tuft has never truly ascertained, stands at attention and gives a smart salute.

Minister Tuft gives Feck the instructions.

* * *

Two Quiches Later

* * *

"Right, then, I think we've got it. Ruddlesby, stand there. McGonagall, over there. Puckle, behind the owls. Behind. _Behind._ Maximum stunners, wands free on three."

Minister Tuft holds up one hand. Silently, she counts down on her fingers. _One. Two. Three._

"HELP! HELP! AURORS! HELP ME, PLEASE!"

Large wizards rush in.

 _Sizzle. Thump. Sizzle. Thump._

Large wizards fall down.

"Bind them," Minister Tuft says. Then she sits down at her desk to take a long sip of hot tea with honey to soothe her raw throat.

While the young people disarm and bind the unconscious aurors, Puckle, weakened and ashen as she is, crawls out from behind the owls and says in a throaty growl, "Remember this, Minerva. Those two are down because _bigotry_ is _stupidity_ with aspirations. You've got to ruthlessly exterminate all the stupidity you find. If you don't, some clever psychopath will ruthlessly nurture it."

 _I do wonder who she was before she came here,_ thinks Minister Tuft. "Now, take them down to the kitchens and gently deposit them where they will do no harm. The house elves will see to them. Proceed from there to Hogwarts. Apprise Professor Dumbledore of the situation, and prevent Urquart from returning to the Ministry for as long as you can. Understood?"

Tellingly, both Ruddlesby and McGonagall look to Puckle for confirmation.

"Do what the Minister tells you, children, or Mummy shall be cross," Puckle tells them.

Ruddlesby and McGonagall have the wit to look embarrassed. Approaching footfalls from beyond the office door quicken their movements, however, and Minerva secures the aurors while Ruddlesby, holding McGonagall's hand, uses his other hand to grasp the pewter teapot.

And they are gone.

Wilhelmina Tuft quietly asks Jane Puckle, "Why do you believe you'll not survive this?"

But any possible answer is cut short when the office door is flung open once again.

* * *

Quidditch Pitch, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Autumn 2017

* * *

"I have been sent to buck you up. I should warn you, I am authorized to make love to you. Medical emergency," Hooch says.

"That won't be necessary," Minerva responds. The day is finer than it has a right to be this time of year. Summer is having a difficult time letting go. She has her arms wrapped entirely around Autumn and the tips of her fingers brush Winter. Minerva has seen many a year like this. Winter always gets her way in the end.

"Just ask her round to tea, Minerva."

"Why? Why am I always the chaser?"

Which, Minerva realizes too late, is a confession.

Hooch lets it drift by unmolested. Instead, she says, "Not true. I can think of at least one other significant example when you were not."

"Hardly comparable, Mara. Nobody out-chases you."

"I had to, didn't I? I was barely twelve. And you were a great big sophisticated lady of thirteen and three quarters. I was perfectly safe with you, no matter how much you wanted to snog the top of my head off. It drove me mad. Half-killed myself on that old Cleansweep to prove I could mix it up with the fast crowd until I figured out how to make you feel safe with me, instead of scared for me. Hooch the Mad is your fault, entirely."

"This is different."

"Is it? A long time ago, when you were scraping me off the bludger, you told me something I've never forgotten. Do you remember?"

"Get yer arse up off the chippie and stop making a skroot's end of y'self?"

"After that. Think more pompous."

'"Age has a power that youth knows not, as I recall."

"Too right. If I can hurt them and they can't hurt me, it isn't fair. If it isn't a challenge, it isn't fair. If there's no possibility of failure, it isn't fair. It certainly isn't romance. As I remember, you called it rape. You made this very clear over several weeks and innumerable pots of black coffee."

"Will there be a conversation about necessary pitch repairs soon?"

"There will be a conversation about finding a new flying instructor soon," Hooch says.

"Mara!"

"But not until I've pointed out to you that I've just seen Herself rip the heart out of your chest and stomp it flat, and all, apparently, without her boots on. There's a challenge. There is every possibility of failure. So get on with it. I won't make you replace me until you do, and I'm tired. I want to start giving your love to Poppy full time, and in exotic locations, before I forget how."

* * *

Office of the Headmaster, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, December 1991

* * *

"You bastard!"

 _Fizz_

"Bastard!"

 _Crash_

"Bastard!"

 _Splut_

"You lying, manipulative, vile, arrogant bastard!"

 _Boom_

"Something vexes you, my dear."

"You should have told me, Albus. You damned weel should have warned me! I am not a, a _chess piece_ for you to move around on some board of your own devising. You, you—"

The wind-up on this curse tells Albus Dumbledore that a serious rupture is about to take place in the vicinity of his pensieve _._ He holds up a hand to stop the wand's forward motion. It looks as if Minerva has stuck it into an invisible mid-air pincushion.

"It was possible that the future I glimpsed in her mind would never come to pass," he tells her. "It was possible that you would never recognise her at all, even if it did. This is a pain I'd hoped to spare you."

"Not recognise? Not recognise my own Jane? You daft twat." Minerva's breathing comes hard, and she leaves her wand stuck in the invisible pincushion to hold one hand firmly against her side, as if she's run miles.

"It has taken you most of a term," he says. Then he retrieves her wand and hands it back to her.

"She's a wee bairn," she says. The pleading in her voice is just short of a sob. Her luminous blue eyes beg for some kind of defensible answer. But he has none.

"If this is too difficult for you, there are alternatives. You know this."

"Bastard."

Minerva McGonagall leaves the shattered room without another word. It is, so far as he knows, the last word she ever speaks on the matter.

* * *

Ministry of Magic, London, 1953

* * *

Minister Tuft notes the shift of light through her office window, shading to late afternoon. The open window admits an unwelcome hint of the Thames. Her imagination fills the pink-grey sky with predatory Thunderbirds.

MACUSA has, in recent weeks, expelled more than one hundred council members and ordinary employees, all without due process or explanation. And to MACUSA, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Magic is currently dark.

Every moment Dumbledore, McGonagall and Ruddlesby keep Urquart and his minions away from here gives her room to reestablish effective control.

But every moment without normal communication risks a helpful investigation from too-powerful allies.

She indulges a brief flowering of cold, cold, iron-hard hatred for the selfish idiot who has brought this upon her.

"Owls," Jane Puckle says.

And it is true. The unregarded crew from the aerie have managed to attach the spelled owl-feather quills to the parade of birds passing through the high, white arches. Upon reaching the correct hand, the quills will write their messages. Urquart's filtering charm does not recognize the quills as outgoing information, as it would if they were scrolled parchment. _Bravo, children. You were worth every precious knut I had to squeeze out of some other budget. Housewifely skills triumph again._

"And elves," adds Minister Tuft. On the cobbles below, a house elf offers a cup of tea and a plate of exotic "fortune cookies" to the Daily Prophet reporter and her press colleagues gathered outside, drawn by distressed floo-calls and owls from the families of Ministry employees. Thank Morgana that so many of the lads habitually sneak home for a bit of rumply-pumply at luncheon. They should be opening the sweets to discover Tuft's official press release about…now.

Minister Tuft turns to the mysterious ally on her left.

"Sit down," she commands. "Talk to me, please."

Jane sits. Sitting still, clearly, is not in her nature. Whoever she is, she is the one that gets sent, not the one who sends. Not yet.

The Minister focuses on Jane's voice mid-sentence. "…three thoughts compete for priority. One, Urquart's promotion to Head of Magical Law Enforcement was clearly not your idea, but revealing that to anyone would be the end, practically speaking, of your authority."

"You've played this game before. Two?"

"Two, the timeline has been injured and is trying to repair itself. Timelines are self-contained."

Minister Tuft summons an interested expression, the kind calibrated to invite explanations while never asking for them.

"There can be many Janes at one time, but there can be only one consistent sequence of events," Jane explains. "Your memory of the Tungaska incident is inconsistent with mine, and that shouldn't be possible. If I am the cause, then time may have to kill me in order to heal the wound. If that happens, you have to get any essential information that McGonagall and Ruddlesby discover to the twenty-first century Minister for Magic, and you have to do it _without Minerva knowing what it is_. She is an iron vault when it comes to keeping secrets in the traditional way, but an accomplished legilimens can have his way with her."

"Understood. Three?"

"Three, when I was Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement, the first thing I did was make a study of the Ministry's historical approaches to security. They were, as I had expected, rubbish. Where would you like to start?"

"That last one, I think."

* * *

Clock Tower, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Autumn, 1953

* * *

"Now would be the time," Albus Dumbledore tells them. Urquart and his three trained terriers are casting drying charms on one another by the shore of the Black Lake for the fourth time that day. They've stormed the library twice, the transfiguration classroom once, attempted the house common rooms (but were resoundingly stopped by wards much stronger than any Urquart and company might breach with their current level of authorisation), and the Headmaster's Office once.

Armando Dippett leaves this sort of thing to his able Deputy Head. He was only mildly disturbed by the battering ram.

The writ the aurors carry specifically allows them access to the restricted section of the Hogwarts library. The restricted section, however, is located entirely within the unrestricted section of the library, and that bit of ground refuses to be traversed by these intruders. Any minute now, one of Urquart's more clever minions may come to understand that his socks have been turned into portkeys, triggered only upon the crossing of certain thresholds. Destination: boathouse diving platform.

"The bit with the socks is brilliant, Professor," Ruddlesby observes.

"Thank you, Ruddlesby. Boyhood invention, you know."

The angry visitors on the shores of the lake squelch up the long, grassy slope and squeege toward the quidditch pitch.

"Time for desperate measures, I fear," Minerva observes. "They're after the brooms. Are the library windows charmed, then?"

"Of course."

Minerva shakes her head sadly. "All of his skills," she says, "And th'scunner cannae think better than to destroy knowledge, because it threatens his pinched and paukit view of the world.

"Be grateful, my dear," Dumbledore tells her, "Can you imagine how dangerous wizards like that would be if they could use this knowledge to enforce their pinched and paukit view of the world?"

* * *

Ruddlesby and McGonagall hold their positions in the boathouse. Any moment now, the faint sound of breaking glass will trigger the next phase of the plan.

"McGonagall, I'd just like to say that, even though we are doing this in a professional capacity for crown and kingdom, you are the most wonderful witch in the world and I am going to thoroughly enjoy every bit of it. Won't be able to help that. Thought you should know."

"Then see to it that I enjoy every bit of it, as well," Minerva tells him. She removes her outer cloak, and her formal outer robe. Some of the more restrictive intimate clothing comes out from under the soft, inner shift.

All that stands between Ruddlesby and bliss is a thin bit of cotton.

A certain commotion from the Castle signals the imminent arrival of angry aurors. Ruddlesby wraps his hand around Minerva's lovely head and pulls them together, drowns her white throat in adoring kisses, pushes his free hand between them and cups a breast with his palm, teases the nipple with his thumb through the light cloth and is rewarded by an amused little hum of appreciation from his partner, when the distant glass shatters and four wizards on brooms pop into existence behind him and zoom past. He feels the air currents on the back of his neck when braking spells are desperately applied.

Four splashes, but the two in the boathouse have not paused in their mutual explorations.

A few precious seconds of trailing tender kisses below Minerva's collarbone, and then a soggy, sputtering bellow from the lake, "Wanton! Jezebel! Whore!"

And they break apart to sprint a carefully planned course out of the boathouse and across the grounds, not fast enough to lose their pursuers, but not slow enough to stray within cursing range, either.

They've both been practicing their _Levitestis_ , just in case.

* * *

 _ **THE DAILY PROPHET**_

 _Morning Edition_

* * *

 _ **MINISTRY MYSTERY MANAGED**_

 _Minister for Magic Wilhelmina Tuft continues to work round-the-clock as reports of crisis in the international magical community arrive from far-flung parts of the globe. Communications have ceased from Alice Springs to Nunavut and uncounted points in-between._

 _An emergency session of the International Wizengamot has been called. Results of the roll-call were thought to be imminent as this edition went to press._

 _Minister Tuft has invoked emergency executive powers. "This is a precaution," she tells the Prophet, "The cause of this crisis is known to the Ministry. It was a minor matter for us to detect and deal with, as a matter of routine security,_ years _ago. Other nations, however, have not been so successful."_

 _The Prophet's highly-placed inside source at the Ministry confides, "It was the old imperius-slash-polyjuice-twins-thwarted-by-anchovies-in-the-boomslang trick again. I mean, really! Who do these upstarts think they're dealing with? Pull the other one, it's got bells on!"_

 _Rescue delegations and humanitarian aid are being organized with the brisk efficiency we have come to expect from our Minister._

 _Continued on Page 2_

 _ **QUIDDITCH GOODWILL DE-TOUR**_

 _The International Quidditch Goodwill Tour will follow a re-organised match schedule as a result of the current world situation. The Holyhead Harpies will face off against the Kumamoto Virile Koi in five days. The Koi are terribly proud of their recently rebuilt quidditch arena. What will come of this contest between the traditionally all-male Koi and the traditionally all-female Harpies? Will Hooch the Mad meet her match at last? The Prophet will exclusively bring you the play-by-play action, so mark your calendars!_

 _ **BLOTTER**_

 _Recently appointed Head of Magical Law Enforcement Elphinstone Urquart yesterday led aurors on a raid of the Hogwarts library. The new top copper has reportedly taken exception to some knitting patterns present in Muggle publications commonly used as part of the Muggle Studies curriculum. Headmaster Armando Dippet reports extensive property damage, but no serious injuries among the students, "…Except for some scrapes and bruises most likely caused by keeping rambunctious youngsters confined to common rooms on such a fine, autumn day."_

 _Urquart could not be reached for comment._

 _Department of Magical Law Enforcement employees report that they were unaware of the raid, having spent the day assisting Minister Tuft in her response to the international crisis._

* * *

London, 1953

* * *

"Minerva, that was probably the single most educational experience of my life. Thank you."

Minerva ruffles his hair as he crawls out of Hooch's big bed. "You know, I think it may have been for me, too," she tells him. And if her smile is as sad as it is fond, he does not notice. He's busied with the business of locating his clothing and cleaning his teeth.

Yes, indeed. That was instructive.

It was great fun, for one. He's a competent lad who isn't afraid to laugh at himself and enjoy it when she joins in. He's a good sport. And there wasn't a thing wrong with his lovemaking, even if, as he claims, most of what he did had previously been known to him only in theory. They were sound theories. Minerva's body was wildly in favor of them, and made this known to her in all the most pleasurable ways.

But she had loved Mara. She knows what it is to give herself like that.

And she loves Jane. There is more of her soul engaged in bringing Jane tea and biscuits than there will ever be in riding Ruddlesby to glory and back again. Or Loqi. Or any man.

Or any man.

The Daily Prophet thumps against the front door where the owl drops it. It's a bit late this morning. Minerva tries to guess what the previous day's events will become in the pages of the newspaper. It may not be accurate, but there will certainly be a lot of it.

She makes for the door and Ruddlesby joins her there. He kisses her goodbye and it is, frankly, perfect. Not too clingy. Not too careless. Just right, and not enough.

She opens the door and has barely enough time to identify the black-clad wizard on the other side before he seizes Ruddlesby and brutally apparates him out of her grasp.

She doesn't even have her wand.


	18. I Sdractsop Hcnerf - TOWT Dementors

**A/N: Graphic Violence Warning**

* * *

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the _partkom volshebnik_?"

"No."

 _Smack!_

"How did you arrange the Ministry task force to Tungaska so quickly?"

"I didn't, I just knew—"

 _Smack!_

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the _partkom volshebnik_?"

"Floo powder, I, um, I was floo powder, and cold. Why is it –"

 _Smack!_

"Who are the others within the Ministry?"

"Others, there are so many—"

 _Smack!_

"WHO? Who are your associates within the Ministry?"

"You know my –"

 _Smack!_

"NAMES"

"I don't under—"

 _Smack!_

"NAMES!"

"So cold –"

 _Smack!_

"NAMES!"

"Help me I don't know what is –"

 _Smack!_

"NAMES!"

"Help me! Oh, God, no, keep it away. Please, for the love of God, keep it away from me—"

"NAMES!"

"HELP! HELP! PLEASE! NO! KEEP IT AWAY. PLEASE! NO NO NO NO NO—"

"DUMBLEDORE! JANE! HELP ME! I CAN'T STAND—OH MY GOD, NO—STAY AWAY! Stay away. Oh, please. Stay away-"

"Who else? Who are your contacts in MACUSA? Who do you report to in Moscow?"

"Help me help me helpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelmmmmffff—"

"Back it off, Yaxley. Give it five minutes and start again."

* * *

Minerva is flat on the floor with her arm yanked behind her back and a wand shoved into her temple. This bit of observation shocks Hermione, because Hermione is the one with her knee in the small of Minerva's back and her wand at Minerva's temple. Hermione doesn't even remember waking up.

Something large had landed on Hermione as she slept. And now, Hermione's heart pounds with ten years' worth of adrenaline burned in ten seconds. Her arm is a screaming pain and the blood is spurting from her nose in rhythm with the pressure that has burst the capillaries like water balloons.

"They took him," Minerva snarls, "The bastards took him and I cannae follow!"

Hermione sits back on her haunches and gasps for breath. Then she rolls off Minerva and lands painfully on the thin, colorless rug that clings to the black walnut floor of her tiny bedroom.

"Fuck!" She cries. Her mouth has filled with blood. It blooms like a rose on her nightshirt and spatters Minerva's white back. There isn't enough light and there wasn't enough sleep and the pain is a fist squeezing life from her mind.

The face that Hermione sees when Minerva rights herself belongs on a Fury. "They've taken him down in the Black, the cowards. Urquart's Boy Scouts."

"You—you're injured?" The blood on Minerva's breast did not come from Hermione's nose. It comes from four distinct parallel grooves dug deep into her skin.

"No, not me. They took Ruddlesby! Hurry!"

"Episkey," Hermione growls, aiming the wand at her arm without pausing in her headlong lurch for the door. The guards that must have appeared in the night are two battered-looking lumps she hardly notices as she leaps over them. She doesn't look back when she bellows, "DUMBLEDORE," loud enough for Minerva to hear.

The fog of memory crystallizes into something sharp and clear.

Minerva is naked.

"CLOTHING!" She adds.

* * *

Elphinstone Urquart is so hard that it hurts, in the dark behind the silver-filmed one-way glass. He stares down at the oblivious young man bowing to him. In the interrogation room, Ruddlesby stands with his feet shoulder-width apart, three feet from the mirrored wall and leaning into it, supporting all his weight on the tips of his fingers and straining every trembling muscle to stay utterly still, because the slightest move in any direction triggers the spasms of a _cruciatus_. Dementors flank him, just out of reach, kept at bay by a pair of non-corporeal shield charms cast by the other occupants of the room.

"What is the key to this cipher?" A home-making magazine is flung on the floor beneath him.

Blood and spit run from his mouth and puddle on the paper. A shield charm is removed. The dementor lunges. Ruddlesby flinches, and the shield charm is restored as he hits the floor screaming.

Elphinstone Urquart's hands rest upon the part of the glass just above the spot where Ruddlesby's hands were. Urquart is panting. And sticky.

The Dementors have turned their hooded gaze toward the plane of glass that separates them from him. Something has taken their attention from the enemy. Haloes of frost outline his fingers. The chill feels good in this stuffy room. Through the fogging glass, he watches the thing on the ground and wonders what his mother whored herself with.

Urquart's release has brought him clarity. The beast empties its bowels and writhes in the filth. There is no way that thing is a pureblood wizard.

So weak.

And so subservient to females. That's the telling clue. Probably house elf in the line somewhere. You get a lot of the faux-wizards that way – house elf sires on Muggle dams. The magic will linger in the blood for a generation or two.

His rictus grin is a ghost on the glass as he strengthens the charm that isolates the observation room from the interrogation room.

"I don't think we're getting any more out of this one," he tells his men, "Go smarten yourselves up."

* * *

In her time, this place is a storage room, a reinforced concrete tunnel burrowed deep into the muddy floodplain of the Thames, the walls bare and crumbling from the salt-tainted sand of the Tideway. The approach is a spiral corridor that ramps steeply down. Apparently, these walls were once covered in the reflective green-black tiles that grace the Department of Mysteries. Once, she now knows, because Hermione's passing explodes them into vitreous dust. Anyone who might still be following her, anyone not stupefied or bound, frightened or fled, is flayed raw and red by the billions of microscopic shards. A faint coating of it dusts her wild curls. The mica flecks glisten. Or is it malachite? One is poison if inhaled, the other will shred lungs the old-fashioned way. _Must be mica._

 _Stupid little man._

Up against the back of a dead-end path is not a safe place to hide.

 _Stupid, stupid little man._

* * *

Macnair and Yaxley maintain the shield charms until the interrogation chamber door is closed and fastened against the dementors' escape. So it is the tang of mineral in the air they notice first, before turning simultaneously to see what causes the strange breaking-window sound that echoes down the corridor.

What they see is something green and glittering rush toward them out of an inky blackness, and the breaking window sound becomes the hiss of sand running through a great hourglass as it approaches.

They shield their eyes and raise their wands at about the same time the howling starts. The howling should be behind them, but it isn't. It's before them. That is, until the giant invisible hands slap them apart, pin them to opposite walls, and yank them forward across the shredding edges of tile that stand just proud of the abrasive groutlines. Their clothes quickly give way to flesh, which quickly gives way to bone, which gives way completely as their wide eyes and open mouths meet the thick, black cloud.

* * *

Hermione's _alohamora_ rips the door from the jamb and throws it aside, where it hits the wall of the corridor like a clap of thunder. The steel plate of the door embeds itself in the concrete, entirely blocking a smaller, unmarked door to the far right of what wall remains.

Hermione doesn't hear the crash of the door. Hermione does not see the blocked escape. She smells rot and disease and blood and shit, and she sees her own reflection floating over two huddled rag piles on the floor of a room covered in ice.

Her arm, the arm that was broken and inexpertly set and broken again and hastily repaired, winds up in a full circle, and the hot agony that rips through the right side of her body makes the bile in her belly come roaring from her mouth at the same time the _reducto_ explodes from her wand.

Her mirrored twin shatters into the black void beyond, but the dementors remain attached to the boy on the floor. The curse has passed right through them. They tangle with one another over their victim, attached by an invisible tether called, in a bit of filthy irony, The Kiss.

One wins, and the other moves back. Hermione only realizes that she has fallen when her knees hit the brittle floor and the jolt travels up the long bones of her legs to the base of her spine. She gasps. Not enough oxygen this close to the drifting cloud, and the world goes fuzzy at the edges. She pushes back at that oblivion with rage. With hatred. With the icy cold despair that reaches out to her. There will be no happy memory in this place. There will be no golden otter.

The tile below her is cracked, and reflects her swollen face, her gorgon hair, even hints of the red film lapping at the corners of her eyes. The beached-fish twitch of her lips.

 _Ah_.

Her left hand slips the wand out of the claw of her right. She pushes it behind her ear, where tangled curls loop around it and hold it fast.

" _Relashio_ ," she wheezes.

 _Relashio Solem_

The spell hits the nearest Dementor like a gale. At first, it is just a flapping of the rotted robes. But Hermione pushes, and pushes, and pushes at the thing until, with a slurping noise that sickens her, it disengages from Ruddlesby. It convulses, twitching. The spasms that ripple through the ethereal body look like gagging, like retching, like vomiting.

Suddenly, something gushes from the thing. It is a great gout of liquid light. Hermione gets one foot under her and pushes a bare sole hard against the tiles. She is lifted, and the power of her releasing spell increases again. She moves forward. The dementor retreats from her.

No, it doesn't retreat.

It shrinks – literally shrinks – away. More vomited light, bright at first then dimmer and dimmer, bursts from it as the dementor's physical form becomes smaller, somehow. Flatter. Denser.

Hermione draws closer and the dementor diminishes until Hermione can see that the second dementor is ripped from its hidden prey, caught in the spell, and it, too, is being squeezed until its guts spill out into the tiny room and hover, corporeal gobbets of light, like curdled memories in a pensieve.

Hermione's arms are streaked where streams of sweat carve channels through the grime on her skin.

The spell is become an involuntary response. The connection she feels with the shrinking creatures is bliss.

Like a boa constrictor feels bliss in the crushing of captive lungs.

Like a bridegroom feels bliss in the bloody breaking of barriers.

She pushes her will through those foul things, rips away all resistance, makes them small.

 _Small._

 _Small._

Her eyes close. It is the only way she can keep seeing them as they condense beyond the threshold of ordinary vision and become like the reality Ruddlesby rides. The smallest point. The mutable point between matter and wave.

She pushes them together until they merge into the space once occupied by one. One space at the same time. One time at the same space. Then she teases them apart again.

She holds them there. Elemental. It is still, here. Calm. Cold. Infinitely, absolutely cold. Hermione watches. She is mesmerized by the slow, graceful cycling of a single particle between this, and that, and this—

 _And that._

 _And this._

There it is, with the infinite cold at the center, and a bright halo that is a ballet of matter and energy danced in slow motion. Beautiful. Mesmerizing.

 _Not mica._

The dazzled mind's eye is stirred, ever so gently, by a thought.

 _Not mica._

 _Rhodizite._

 _Rhodizite crystals and their magical properties. Yes. Even the Muggles use it in their half-glimpsed knowledge of the magic around them._

 _Rhodizite crystals in the glaze of these tiles._

 _Rhodizite crystals that contain the impurity, Caesium._

 _Caesium the liquid._

 _Caesium the unstable._

 _Caesium, the timekeeper of the cosmos. The atom that becomes The Atomic Clock._

It becomes so slow in the orbit of the infinite cold that Hermione can reach out with her mind and pluck it, play with it, arrange it like marbles, or like rivulets of water on a pane of glass.

She can reach out with her left hand to draw the beautiful little binary system to her, into the folded space behind the mechanical gears that turn the hands of her old-fashioned watch, into the chamber that is ninety degrees from reality, into non-being, which is to say, everything.

If only the screaming would stop.

* * *

"Madame Puckle, you are safe," Dumbledore's voice tells her before her eyelids have finished opening. He is blurry, but definitely there, with one hand warm on the skin of her lower arm. Hospital. Safe.

"Is she awake?" Asks an anxious voice nearby.

Hermione turns her gaze toward the the source of the question. It is Elphinstone Urquart.


	19. Xob Eht - TOWT Quiche

A/N: The Dementors Ate My Quotation Marks

* * *

 **The Drift**

* * *

Sometimes, the Voices are an interesting break from the Drift. Mostly, they're annoying. They call her mind back to the heavy, horrible place it hates to go. Focusing on them is like wearing socks made of sandpaper.

Any change, Matron?

No, Professor. Except for the obvious injuries, she's quite healthy. I don't suppose you can sense anything? Anything from her mind, I mean.

Mmm. That's an interesting question. Images do drift to the surface. The most frequent one is that of a glass billiard ball. It is black and white, and has the number eight on it. It seems to bear the words "Reply Hazy. Try Again Later".

* * *

 **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 2017**

* * *

October Meeting of the Board of Governors, Chairman Sean Longshanks, Presiding

Seated at the dias, from left to right: Narcissa Malfoy, Doric Davies, Marjorie Penney, Bran Llewellyn, Lulu Popplewell, Malthus Choudhury, Sean Longshanks, Cackle Puckett-Nguyen, Jadis Kirke, Ginevra Weasley, Dianthus Dwight, and Nymphicus Feather.

Gavel - 1:14 PM

"Headmistress McGonagall, a situation has been brought to our attention that must be addressed," says the Chairman of the Board of Governors for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

 _This bloody nuisance won't go away,_ says Minerva McGonagall's inner translator.

"We have reports on the behavior of two young wizards that many find disturbing."

 _We have reports on the behavior of two young wizards that many find exciting._

"That they were engaging in open sexual congress with one another on school grounds, in full view of staff and fellow students, including those in their first and second years."

 _Our idiot sons came home all confused because they got a stiffy from watching a couple of handsome, popular boys snog in the halls._

"We can all agree that standards of moral behavior are of supreme importance in a secondary school."

 _We all know that Albus Dumbledore stuffed the place with lesbians and homosexuals in a political strategy known informally as Mutually Assured Destruction, as much to ensure the loyalty of his staff as to demonstrate any open-mindedness on his part. But public acknowledgement of this would prove most embarrassing._

"No one on the Board of Governors has ever been given any reason to doubt your own commitment to high moral standards."

 _No one has ever wanted to have sex with you._

"We have drafted a policy for you to review and sign."

 _Someone did not think the "snogging" memorandum was funny._

* * *

 **The Drift**

* * *

She's losing weight fast, Minister. I was thinking, perhaps, there are Muggle methods to—

No.

But if we can't find a safe place at St. Mungos—

No.

She will die, Minister. We have a limited ability to keep her hydrated, but without food, she will die. There are laws. There are rules. By what authority do you deny her necessary medical treatment? Is she a condemned prisoner?

No.

For pity's sake, Wilhelmina! We've all the treatment in the world for that – that – _Urquart_ , and he –

 _Silence. Wiggly wiggly fingers made the nasty noise go away. There is something interesting to remember about that. Something – no. There is nothing to remember. Nothing at all._

* * *

 **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, October 2017**

* * *

RESOLUTION TO ENACT OR MODIFY POLICY – HOGWARTS SCHOOL OF WITCHCRAFT AND WIZARDRY

Wheareas:

Public displays of affection or sexual intent shall be strictly forbidden on school grounds, said displays defined as…

Penalties shall include detentions, temporary suspension of privileges, expulsions, as appropriate to the infraction…all decisions of the Headmaster or Headmistress shall be subject to review, rejection, ratification, and/or alteration by the Board of Governors…

* * *

 **The Drift**

* * *

Madam Abbott, she's in some sort of fugue state –

 _I know that one! The fugue state is New Jersey! It's on a clock somewhere. How did they get an entire state on a clock?_

Matron, how long has she been in a state of -

 _Matron, how long has New Jersey been in a state of clock?_

\- state of shock?

 _Matron? Matron?_ _How long have they been gone?_

Twenty-seven days.

 _Ten years? Twenty?_

 _"Yes."_

 _"What?"_

 _"Twenty."_

 _"How do you—"_

 _"I killed them."_

 _"You—" Minerva covers her mouth with one hand and clutches at her belly with the other. "You—"_

 _"Killed them."_

 _"All of them?"_

 _"All of them."_

 _"Oh my god. Oh my god," Minerva slowly backs away from Hermione in the darkened room._

 _"They hunt children, Minerva," Hermione says, and is shocked to hear the hurt in her own voice._

 _Screaming._

 _Oh, good. The screaming makes the nightmare go away. Wake up! Wake up! All right, stop screaming, now. Who is making all that fuss? Shhh. Someone wiggle some fingers at that screaming._

* * *

 **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 2017**

* * *

"Have you read and understood the proposed policy, Headmistress McGonagall?"

"I have."

"Signify your assent before this Board by saying 'Aye' and by affixing your signature to the parchment, please."

 _And now for today's lesson._

"Doric Davies. Boathouse, Hallowe'en night, 2009. Hayley Crudgely," Minerva announces.

"What!"

 _The color in your face is more likely the shame of bedding a plain Muggleborn than any concerns about privacy, ye social-climbing gobshite._

"Bran Llewellyn. Prefect's bathroom, Christmas Holidays, 2007. Marjorie Penney," Minerva continues.

"Headmistress!"

 _And 'twas pity on her part, Bran._

"Ginevra Weasley. Forbidden Forest, September 1999. Harry Potter."

Minerva lowers her glasses and peers over them at the assembled Board. Only Narcissa Malfoy and Ginny Weasley fail to fidget.

 _And don't think it wasn't a chore keeping the centaurs out of your bower, wee clever Weasley. Aye, clever enough to have gotten Hayley's and Marjorie's consent for this little drama._

"Stop! Headmistress McGonagall, you've made your point, I'm sure."

 _Yes, and you would be the next in line, wouldn't you, Sean? And you've no way of knowing for certain that before 1998, I'd no way of knowing for certain._ _Hear much from Mr. Zabini these days? No? How many galleons is that costing you?_

The Headmistress stands up. "No, I haven't made my point yet, Sean," she says. "Minerva McGonagall. Quidditch equipment room, October 1939. Xiomara Hooch."

 _Anybody? Anybody? Speak up if you have something to add. No? Ah, now Narcissa Malfoy bestirs herself, having predicted the winning side._

"I believe, Headmistress, that this policy concerns itself with _public_ displays," says the cool voice.

"You want me to forbid goodnight kisses and Common Room hand-holding, so that the Board of Governors can mete out punishment based on prejudice and politics. I will not."

 _And there they sit, the neo-isolationists, the ambitious, the merely restless, the self-deluding, the politically expedient. Don't draw your wands on me if you've no plans to use them, children._

"Well," concludes Narcissa Malfoy, "I can see this requires more careful consideration. Any other new business?"

* * *

 **The Drift**

* * *

 _Purring. That's a good sound. I like that sound. Purr, purr, purr! Ow! It's purr, purr, purr; not knead, knead, knead. It isn't lick, lick, lick, either. Be still, little one._

* * *

 **Office of the Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, October 2017**

* * *

Headmistress McGonagall,

Based on reports of your October meeting with the Board of Governors, I've assembled certain resources that will be at your disposal, should the issue of "snogging policy" (or indeed any other related issue arising from that meeting's discussions) be revisited. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement will closely oversee any new policy enacted by the Hogwarts Board of Governors.

Most Sincerely,

Hermione Granger

Deputy Head of Magical Law Enforcement

* * *

 **The Drift**

* * *

 _Scrapey-scrapey. Swishy-swishy. Shuffly-shuffly. Scrubby-scrubby. Hummy-hummy._

Tis up you come, tis up you come.

No mess, no mess. All clean, all clean.

Puckle-Master wants washing, wants washing, she does.

Puckle-Master wants waking, wants waking, she does.

Who meddle must muddle, masters or no.

Tis up you come, tis up you come.

Up, up.

Feck has an empire to run.

Up, up, up you come!

 _Oh._

 _No!_

 _Oh, no._

* * *

 **Private Quarters of the Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, October 4, 2017**

* * *

Here, then, is a box. It was a birthday gift from Albus Dumbledore in 1991, and is suitable for storing unwanted memories. It has never been used for that purpose.

Minerva has no unwanted memories.

This kind of box was once widely used in magical medicine. After the Great War, it was thought to be a kind of miracle treatment for the injury then known as shell shock. Minerva used it on an almost daily basis, during the war and for some years after.

It dulled the pain.

It took away minor memories and took the sting out of major ones.

It took away the ability to protect oneself from those who would invade minds for their own pleasure or profit. It laid bare the soul. It made Minerva and many like her untrustworthy _._

Untrustworthy.

Very little in life is still capable of triggering shame in Minerva McGonagall, but this does. She took the coward's path once too often in youth. Now, she cannot be trusted to protect the secrets of the innocent from the predations of evil.

Minerva's box contains a lock of hair carefully wrapped in an old mokeskin bag. It is where she put her heart, wrapped in hope, when it became clear that she might never again need it. It also contains her emergency carton of ginger newts.

* * *

 **Infirmary, Ministry of Magic, London, 1953**

* * *

It feels like nighttime.

 _Dark. This room has no window. The light on the table is much, much too far away. No wand. No watch._

The ring should slip right off her bone-thin finger, but it does not budge unless she uses her own hand to remove it. She wonders how the house elves manage to make her mouth taste minty-fresh.

Dawn will come, eventually. She can do nothing to stop it.

* * *

 **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, October 4, 2017**

* * *

Minerva's private quarters are accessible from a little-known back staircase, unmarked and unremarkable. It leads to a landing that bypasses the Head's office. There is a space carved out of the stone. It measures about three metres by three metres square and three metres high. A rug sits outside the pine plank door.

The rug is not tartan.

It's art nouveau. There are swirly, stylized roses on it. Well!

One wall of the landing has a tall, narrow window that was fitted with glass long after it was carved, and the dark wood shutter that closes across the window is pulled open and secured to the wall with an iron chain pulled through an iron ring.

It is lighted by a single torch mounted in the wall opposite the window. The smoke curls up and disappears into a hand-sized iron grate, which is bolted over a hole in the stone ceiling.

Hermione finds that she likes this small space very much. It feels old and solid. The walls, though cold stone, are a warm color, and have been worn silky-smooth by human hands in some places, more than a thousand years of human touch.

She adjusts the weight of the cloth shopping bag and knocks on the door. Hermione has no doubt that the occupant of this apartment has some method of seeing the visitor before opening the door. There is no way to look casual. So she settles for honestly apprehensive.

The door opens. Minerva, saints preserve us, is in her white nightdress and green velvet robe. Her hair is braided and hangs over the left shoulder, slightly asymmetrical, because Minerva is right-handed. She isn't wearing her spectacles, either. There is an overall impression of dampness and a wonderful scent of soap.

Hermione finds that she must swallow, hard, before she can speak.

"Here," she says, and hands Minerva the cloth grocery bag.

"What is this?" Minerva asks. She accepts the two handles of the bag, one in each hand, and peers into it.

"It's an apology," Hermione says. "I am a judgmental prat. You are Minerva Motherfucking McGonagall."

Minerva looks up from the bag of groceries in honest surprise. Hermione does not believe those eyes have ever been bigger. It must be a trick of perspective, like when the full moon first peeks over the horizon and seems enormous because there is something to compare it with.

"Minerva I miss you so damned much. Forgive me."

Minerva blinks. "This apology," she says, indicating the bag she holds with a little shaking gesture, "Looks suspiciously like the makings of a quiche. Yes?"

"Yes. It's vaguely foreign and sophisticated, yet is made entirely of non-threatening Celtic/Anglo ingredients. Even mustard."

"We had quiche in the olden times, Hermione. You'd better come in. I'm pants at the custard part. Too much like potions."

* * *

They are washing dishes. There is no reason to be doing this. Hermione knows more than one dishwashing spell. The kitchen is too small for two people to stand in at one time, and yet, they may be standing closer together than even this tight space would warrant.

Most of this kitchen was installed in the Forties. It wasn't a bad decade for kitchens. Cast iron enamel is durable. It must have been expensive in the post-war years. The cupboards, however, are from Ikea. Hermione finds no end of mirth in this fact.

Minerva has not bothered to change out of her nightclothes. The soft, swinging Breasts of Rescue are extant. Hermione also finds much amusement in this.

 _Or maybe it's the wine_ , Hermione thinks.

(Why has she not understood how desperately she wants to know how Minerva fries up a rasher of streaky bacon? Rarely in her life has Hermione found anything so compelling. Minerva doesn't separate the individual strips, but tosses the brick whole in the pan and caramelizes the fatty side brown before teasing each slice away, gently, one by one. And she doesn't fry it too hot. Her fingers fearlessly poke and prod the pieces to make sure they cook evenly, so the result is the perfect texture for dicing - not so crisp that it jumps at the touch of a knife blade, but not so limp that the fatty bits refuse to separate when sliced. Minerva tests the doneness by pinching a representative piece out of the pan and dropping it into her open mouth like a baby bird eating a worm. Hermione wants to run out to the shops for some bangers and chops, just to watch Minerva cook them.)

Hermione washes. Minerva dries and puts away. This involves a lot of let-me-just-slip-by-you-here maneuvering.

(Somewhere between the bacon frying and the cheese grating, any illusions that Hermione might have about the nature of her feelings for Minerva M.F. McGonagall sort of drift away. She's made a mental list of books on same-sex relationships to consult by the time they toss the salad.)

"So," Hermione says, because they are running out of dishes and excuses to be in the same room, "You ate a lot of quiche back before the Norman Conquest, did you?"

"Mm-hmm. It was a favorite of Wilhelmina Tuft, back in my Ministry days."

Hermione drops the washcloth into the sink and has to fish it out. "THE Wilhelmina Tuft?"

"Oh, she gets a definite article? It's a fine thing she doesn't rate a Motherfucking middle name, or I'd be dead jealous."

Minerva watches her. She rests her hands on the edge of the sink, still clutching the dishtowel in the right one. Minerva does not bother to make the little bit of extra room for Hermione that would keep their bodies from incidental contact. Contact incidents are definitely happening.

 _She's not kissing me_ , Hermione thinks. _This isn't a mere lack of kissing. This is the forbearance of kissing. She wants to kiss me. She's quite deliberately showing me that she wants to kiss me and is not doing it._

 _How do I feel about this? Nipples hard. Warm and wet in the knickers. Yes, this has all the omens and portents of doom. Are there websites for this?_

"Happy birthday, Minerva," Hermione says.


	20. Relwoh - TOWT Cursing

A/N: Two witches, both alike in dignity (in tiny kitchen where we lay our scene) from ancient scotch break to new mutiny. Too sensible to kill themselves o'er star-cross'd love, they kill a fifth of single malt instead.

* * *

"May the curse of Mary Malone and her nine blind bastards chase ye so far over the hills of Damnation that the Laird himself cannae find ye with a telescope," Minerva flourishes her shot glass, "Dog fucker."

"Brilliant start. Fantastic. A classic."

Minerva dips her head in acknowledgement and, while she's down there, sips another wee dram of the good stuff. "Had to translate it from the original Irish into proper Scots, ay coorse. Ye noo."

"I coorse yenew?" Hermione repeats. Nothing. No actual meaning is attaching itself to the thing Minerva has just said. Occasionally, when scotch is involved, it takes some time for the sense to emerge from the sounds. _I curse yennoo. Ay, curse ye, noo. Accurse ye, new._

"Uhv cores. Yew noo-ow. Yew neo. Off w'ye! Ach, woman, the Macallan goes in your mouth, not your ears. Let's hear it. Do your worst."

"Ah. Right. Fuck that. Fuck that fuckery like the fucking Fangorn fuck-faeries fucking at the fucking Tour de Fuck, you cream-filled cockwomble," Hermione responds. Primly.

"You're not so bad, yourself," says Minerva.

* * *

"You know what I wonder, you overripe snatch-twiddler?"

"I do know, undescended asshat. And the answer is yes, _ay coorse_ ," Minerva exaggerates the brogue, "T'would be far superior to any you've had so far. But that's because I've the knowin' of it, and because you've been bedding a boy who's only afraid of two things in this world and the other one is his mother, but not necessarily because it's the thing you truly need. What? Take the look off your face. That's what all the straight girls wonder. I should have it printed on a card."

Hermione blinks one or two times more than is strictly called for at this point, becomes aware of it, and, finding that she is out of Macallan, neatly reaches out to snatch Minerva's glass. She downs the few drops at the bottom and hands it back to Minerva without comment. Then she nods. "Listen, you shite-shuffling bonesuck, that isn't what I was wondering at all. But since you mention it, why do humans care so much more about the plumbing," and here Hermione makes a gesture vaguely inclusive of her own primary and secondary sexual characteristics, "Than they do about the wiring?" She touches a finger to the center of Minerva's forehead and gives a little push.

The shutters at the window open themselves. The sash creaks up a few inches. At once, a cold draft blows in, gutters the lamps, and brings a bit of revivifying briskness into the mix. "Oh, that. No idea. I was hoping you knew." Minerva rotates the kinks out of her shoulders and takes a long, deep breath through her nose, then slowly exhales from her mouth. "Yoga breath," she says, "Trelawney's finally found a useful passion. You might come to one of the classes she gives for staff."

Hermione contemplates the likelihood of maintaining a zen-like calm while watching Minerva do Downward-Facing Dog. She can barely maintain calm while watching Minerva do Forward-Facing Witch.

"So, ye bung-puckering bampot, what were you wondering, then?" Minerva interrupts this reverie.

"Well, my dear fuck-stuck sheep shagger, when I was eighteen years old, before I grew wisdom teeth or learned to drive, I broke into Gringotts – Gringotts, mind you - and _took their dragon_. There has never been a door in all of Hogwarts I could not open. What made you think you could keep me out of the restricted section?"

"By St. Boogar and all the saints at the backside door of purgatory, thou art a twat-knackered clusterfuck," Minerva non-answers. "And while we are on that topic, Miss Jane Puckle, could you cast a critical eye at your heteronormative little book? An update might be useful."

Hermione is certain that Minerva has managed to stuff at least ninety-two syllables and as many coded messages into the word _heteronormative._

* * *

"Maundering meat muppet," Minerva intones.

"Indigestible jizz-trumpet strumpet," Hermione retorts.

Minerva is temporarily pulled up short. Her mind cannot parse whether the jizz-trumpet is indigestible or the strumpet is indigestible. And it seems as if there should be a crumpet in there, somewhere. In the end, she manages, "Yer bums oot the windae ye drookit dunderheaded Sassenach neep!"

"And you are a twittering sperm sipper."

"Never twittered in my life," Minerva says.

* * *

"Bugfucking bawbag."

"Nun-dicked needlefucker."

"Ass-backward arse-badgering erse," Minerva says, then immediately adds, "Three dialects in one curse. Ten points to Gryffindor!"

"Biscuit-fondling bint!" Hermione is gratified that Minerva must pause after that one, though Minerva covers it by allowing another few drips of Macallan to fall into each of their shot glasses. Then, as if in afterthought, she rifles the biscuit tin for the last of the after-dinner ginger newts.

Then she winds up with a deep breath and launches, "Slag-slapping fungus of pendulous shape."

"Ferret-buggering trollop," Hermione volleys, and downs her drink. "This is the best witch's duel ever," she says, thumping the heavy glass bottom of her empty shot glass on Minerva's small kitchen table for emphasis. Definitely for emphasis. Not for poor depth perception and lack of fine muscle coordination. Nope.

"Wandless cursing," Minerva agrees, "Best kind."

* * *

"Your grandfather smelt of elderberries and your eyebrows knit together in a threatening manner, thou nargle-infested bumblefuck," Hermione asserts.

"Thou crusty batch of nature, thou smell of mountain goat, thou ruttish, cunt-eared scrotum scrubber!" Minerva replies.

"I'm not sure Shakespeare ever said that last one," Hermione observes. She's managed to nurse the tiny bit of scotch in her glass. Minerva has not bothered. But the Macallan is mother's milk to Minerva, Hermione supposes. Tongue-scorching, throat-searing, incendiary, brain-bashing mother's milk.

"He did," Minerva tells her. "He said it to me. We dated in the sixth form."

"Good kisser?" Hermione enquires.

"Rubbish. But then, after Chaucer, who could measure up?"

"Who, indeed?" Hermione asks. Then she puts both elbows on the small table, leans in, and growls, "Thou mammering, fly-bitten dick dabber."

Minerva mirrors Hermione's gesture until they are nose-to-nose over the dusty pink and teal boomerang-patterned laminate, and says, with great solemnity, "Thou infectious, bugfucking weiner yak."

Hermione holds her ground. "Minerva?" She whispers.

"Yes?"

"That may be the hottest thing anyone has ever said to me."

"Do ye yield, then?"

"Never."

* * *

Hermione's pillow smells like Minerva. Her blanket is taken from Minerva's bed. She's clinging to the purple sofa to keep from falling off the world. This is all part of her cunning plan, and she thinks it's working, only she can't be sure because she doesn't remember what it is.

A hand, Minerva's hand, has just pulled the blanket up over her shoulder.

"Goodnight, dildo gargler," Hermione murmurs to the hand.

"Sleep well, ye poxy whore," Minerva whispers.

"Not poxy."

"Sleep well, thou radiant whore."

Definitely, absolutely the hottest thing anyone has ever said to her.

* * *

Ministry of Magic, London, 1954

* * *

Hermione is holding hands with Wilhelmina Tuft, and she is speechless. Although holding hands with the Minister might ordinarily cause speechlessness, it is the nature of Tuft's request that has Hermione at a loss for words.

It is dawn. Wilhelmina Tuft arrived with the first rays of the sun. The house-elf Feck was at her side. Without preamble, she took Hermione's hand and said, "Jane Puckle, I entreat you to this unbreakable—"

"Hermione."

Minister Tuft pauses, glances at Feck, sees the tiny nod, and continues, "Hermione—"

"McGonagall," Hermione says. It is, in the sense necessary for the unbreakable vow she is obviously being asked to make, true. And it might keep any currently unknown trouble off the Granger doorstep for a few decades.

"Hermione McGonagall," Minister Tuft continues, after some digestion of this, "I entreat you to this unbreakable vow: that you will answer my questions truthfully and fully for as long as I am Minister for Magic. That you will attempt to contact me first in times of trouble or, in your reckoning, potential trouble, for as long as you are resident in the Ministry of Magic."

"I will," Hermione says. And maybe not just because her life depends on it.

"And your requirements for me?" Minister Tuft prompts.

Hermione doesn't hesitate, "That you will nurture and protect Minerva Millicent Morgan McGonagall for as long as you shall live."

Minister Tuft smiles, "Too late. I've already made that one."

Hermione's surprise must show on her face, because the hand she is holding gives a gentle, reassuring squeeze. This is the thing that temporarily robs her of speech. She considers carefully. "You'll already care for the Kingdom with every breath in your body, clearly. So – Minister Wilhelmina Tuft, I entreat you to this unbreakable vow: That you will write your memoirs, specifically your ideas, strategies and experiences in leading the Ministry of Magic in its recovery from a debilitating war against fascist oppression. You will hide this document in the French provincial desk currently in your office, and you will spell it so that it will only become accessible to one of Shacklebolt blood."

"How very fascinating," Minister Tuft says.

"But I get to read it," Hermione tells her. She wishes someone would have given her a sip of water before starting right in with the speech-making. Something has sucked her dry, and her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth.

"I will," vows Wilhelmina Tuft. Feck performs the sanctifying ritual with the precision of one who has done this many times.

Hermione feels the spell wash over her. For someone who has been sleeping for a long, long time, she's exhausted.

* * *

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 2017

* * *

Purple. The world has gone purple. Unable to deal with the purpleness of the world, Hermione turns over.

Red. The world has gone red. It takes some seconds for Hermione's brain to come to terms with the redness of the world, but, eventually it resolves itself into a bloody mary, held by a Hogwarts house elf, vigilantly, so as to be the first thing Hermione sees when she wakes up.

She accepts the thing, thanks the elf, and drinks as much as she can without risking an inexpedient rejection. That done, she accepts the elf's invitation to perform morning ablutions in the small public privy attached to Minerva's office. The door to Minerva's private quarters is open, and when she pops her head in, she finds Minerva at the same small kitchen table where meals are taken, nursing her own bloody mary, and exhibiting a demeanor so dignified, it can only be caused by great pain.

Not even Minerva McGonagall is that stiff-spined first thing in the morning.

Hermione sits across from her at the table and they regard one another, silently and blearily, for a long, long time.

 _Now. Now is the moment to launch the cunning plan._

Hermione ever-so-gently rests the empty bloody mary glass on the table. She moves, slowly, behind Minerva. Minerva is perfectly still, as if wary of Hermione's movements, but unwilling to face the consequence of moving to see what Hermione might be up to back there.

 _This is critical_ , Hermione thinks. _The whole plan rests on this._

She has had time to think these past months. Mostly, she has been thinking about Minerva, and what Minerva needs. Minerva needs privacy. Hermione has respected every boundary. Minerva needs stability. Hermione has made and kept regular twice-weekly appointments to share food, games, and entertainment. Minerva needs something to ease the aches and pains of aging, of responsibility, and even the occasional self-inflicted wound. Hermione has taken an advanced course in magical therapeutic massage.

Hermione silently casts the charm that warms her hands. She practices the relaxation technique that will allow those hands to sense tension and pain. She prepares herself to send love and comfort through the tips of her fingers.

Hermione cups both hands around Minerva's shoulders, at the place where they meet her neck. Her thumbs contact bare skin. She quiets the world outside, concentrates entirely on the flesh and bone and nerve, tries to ignore the electric thrill that shoots through her own body at the touch. When that fails, she concentrates on channeling that thrill into the pleasure she so wants to give. All of this happens in the space between one second and the next.

Minerva is holding her breath.

Hermione is holding Minerva.

And in the second after that, the breath is expelled and the shoulders relax, just a bit, into the warmth of Hermione's hands. Hermione moves her thumbs in slow circles, smoothing away small electrical storms of pain raging in the nerves just below the surface of the soft, exposed skin.

 _Brilliant start,_ Hermione thinks. _Classic._

Minerva's response is a sigh.


	21. Ruomra - The One

A/N: Lost in Hell/Persephone/Take her head upon your knee/Say to her, "My dear, my dear/It is not so dreadful here."

* * *

"Put that down!" Hermione can barely walk on her own, but she manages to move all the way across the room and snatch the wristwatch out of Minerva's hand quite decisively. She holds the watch to her chest and leans on the table for support. "This is incredibly dangerous. It was charmed by the most brilliant and powerful witch I have ever known. No one, _no one_ , has ever figured it out without being told. You'd have it sussed out in a flash, Lintie. And a flash is all that would be left of you."

"Is it not obvious?" Minerva asks.

Hermione's knees buckle. Minerva shoots an arm around her. One wooden school chair of the Time Lab has been transfigured into something soft and cushiony, with chintz. Minerva gently lowers Hermione into it.

"Dangerous," Hermione wheezes, "Dangerous."

"It's been safe at Gringotts, with all the rest," Dumbledore says.

Hermione closes her eyes against the dizziness and nausea. Minerva pulls the low table closer to the armchair. Minerva, Dumbledore and Minister Tuft gather closely around, as if Hermione were the one who needs protection.

Hermione's hand, her wand, and her wristwatch rest on the table beside her. _So what we have here,_ she thinks _, is the ring of power, the key to time, and the wonder wand_. And there is no one in the entire world equipped to understand why this has launched Hermione into wracking spasms of laughter. She touches her wand.

"You've done the _priori incantatem_ , of course," she says. _And did you stop when you got to the vibrating charm?_

Minister Tuft says, "Why don't you tell us what happened, Puckle? In your own words?"

"Minerva fell on me. She was bleeding. _Locomotor mortis_ ," Hermione says, "And the first sentinel fell."

"And then?"

" _Stupefy_ ," she continues. The effort of memory hurts. It's a sharp pain. Her breath catches.

"And Urquart's second goon went down," Minerva adds.

"The warding sequence," she says, because she is a law enforcement officer trained never to speak the sequences aloud, even those long expired. "And then—" She closes her eyes and rests her head on the soft chair back.

Eventually, Minister Tuft speaks. "And then, the temporal instability that followed you here reacted with the walls of the tunnel that leads down into the Black, weakening it."

Hermione nods. _Yes, that must be so._

Dumbledore continues, "You met Yaxley and Macnair as they left the interrogation chamber. You fought your way past them, and they fled back up the tunnel, where, unfortunately, they perished in the collapse near the entrance."

"Yaxley and Macnair? Is that who they were?" Hermione whispers. Did she orphan the Yaxley and Macnair she knows? She heard no collapse. Would she hear it over the roaring rage in her own ears? Did she even look at their faces? She didn't care who they were. They might have been Ron and Harry. Rose and Hugo. She'd have tossed them over her shoulder and not looked back.

This is a terrible certainty.

" _Alohamora_ ," Hermione says. "Dementors. Ruddlesby. Ruddlesby!" Her eyes fly open wide, as if to shut her mind's eye on the memory of his broken body on the floor.

Minerva's hand is holding hers, holding her wand hand down, in fact.

" _Reducto_ ," Hermione breathes.

"Jane," Minerva's voice is soft and soothing. It isn't as deep as the voice she loves, but it is every bit as musical. "I've seen your Patronus. Why _reducto_?"

"Ruddlesby," Hermione says, looking from face to face in mute pleading. _Albus, if ever you use those mind-reading skills of yours, now is the time. I have no words for this._ Hermione is aware of the tears washing down her face.

"You couldn't summon one," Dumbledore says.

Hermione nods. _Yes_. "Failed," she says. "Forgot how. Forgot - me."

" _Relashio_ ," Minister Tuft prompts her. "You tried to make the dementors let go of them."

Hermione thinks about this. "Them?"

There is a long silence in the room. Dumbledore and Minister Tuft are not looking at one another. Nevertheless, Hermione believes that something is passing between them.

Finally, Minister Tuft tells her, "You could not have known that Urquart would be in the path of your _reducto_. He lay wounded on the observation room floor. Your _relashio_ saved – lives."

"I squeezed the dementors until they popped," Hermione says, telling herself the story as much as her audience. "Yes." Then something catches her attention, "Lives?"

"Jane," Minerva says, gently. "Please put down your wand and look at me."

Hermione does so. Minerva swipes her thumb across Hermione's cheeks where the tears are drying.

"There's someone I'd like you to meet. He may alarm you, but there is nothing to be alarmed about. I am here. No one will hurt you."

"And I," Wilhelmina Tuft adds, from somewhere behind her.

 _Yes. No one will harm Minerva._

Dumbledore moves away from the tight circle and returns with one arm protectively around the shoulders of a smaller man.

Elphinstone Urquart.

Hermione is halfway out of her seat and being firmly pushed back into it before she realizes that she has reacted.

Urquart doesn't even have the sense to flinch.

"Aloha," he says, "I have a funny name. I think you're a pickle. I knew you'd come!"

Dumbledore, in that maddeningly reasonable voice, the one that fills with wonder while explaining something that has caused death and pain, says, "The expelled spiritual matter took refuge in the nearest viable body."

"Expelled spiritual matter?" Hermione deadpans.

"Souls, in short," Dumbledore says, "Many of them. Some strong and vibrant. Others made weak by time, and by personal choice."

Souls. She released souls into the wild, and the strongest of them took up residence in the body of Elphinstone Urquart.

Ruddlesby, her Ruddlesby, that sweet boy, is still gone. And, somehow, he is still going, will go, along that path that human souls are meant to take.

She killed Urquart. She killed the bastard. She smiles.

She also killed herself.

"The ring," she whispers.

"Yes," Dumbledore says.

Urquart is holding his arms out to Minerva like a toddler looking for transportation. She leads him away. Hermione has a memory of Minerva and Sybil Trelawney in another lifetime. "Sybil, dear, this way."

"Somehow, the purging of the dementors separated you from your own – " Dumbledore begins.

"They are a singularity," Hermione monotones.

Dumbledore goes quiet.

"A spiritual singularity. A black hole surrounded by an accretion disc of human souls, somehow evolved into a complex organism, like us. That's what a dementor is. And when I purged them, it strengthened the vacuum at their core. Vacuum. They hoovered the soul right out of me."

Dumbledore digests this.

"But you survived. That ring, however it was made, anchored you to your body."

"It was made from love to protect me," Hermione states,"I made it a horcrux."

The witch and wizard in the room draw back in shock and revulsion. The word itself is taboo to them.

"I killed them all and made a horcrux to survive."

"No," Minister Tuft says.

"Yes, but," Dumbledore says at nearly the same time.

Hermione says, "Hush," and wiggles her fingers at them in imitation of Minister Tuft's all-purposed mute charm.

"My dear," Minister Tuft gently suggests, "You were hardly responsible for the tunnel's collapse. Maybe you exploded the ceramics, but they weren't holding up the walls. And the steel plate lodged in the concrete wasn't destructive enough to cause a cave-in. There had to be an instability."

 _The amazingly convenient tunnel collapse that crushed two already-dead bodies._ For some reason, Hermione remembers the words to Feck's bathing song. He has an empire to run. He can't clean up every mess all by himself.

"I meant to kill them," Hermione says. "I meant to kill all of them, men and dementors. For revenge. For Ruddlesby. That is exactly what I was trying to do."

"You may have succeeded," Dumbledore says, "Accidentally."

Both witches turn to face him.

"Have you noticed the pattern of events surrounding your appearance here? You created a time-turning device, it was unstable, it went wrong, and here you are. Without, it seems, the time-turning device. Why did the anachron shower move from the center of the dancers to you? Why did you spend years being pushed and pulled through time? Why did the ceramic tiles explode when you passed near to them in an unguarded frame of mind? Where are those dementors? The time turner you created has somehow become part of you."

"I know," Hermione tells them. "I know how to use that reaction to create what needs to be created. And I know how to control it. I know how to kill a dementor and use its corpse to control the turning of time. Murder it - a foul, terrifying creature, but certainly also a living, thinking being."

She holds up her watch until the bezel glitters in the lamplight.

"The only thing I don't know is how I can live with myself if I do it, nor how I can live with myself if I don't."

Albus Dumbledore has no answer.

* * *

"Welcome home."

Someone has redecorated her flat. It's lovely. But, somehow, it doesn't seem to Hermione the sort of thing the Ministry would prioritize at this time. The plaster is whitewashed. The floors are covered in soft jade green rugs made thick and soft with padding. The furnishings are sculptural light maple, covered in nubbly pastels. It is – yes – someone has Danish Moderned her quarters.

"Minister Tuft," Minerva says. Her legilimency will never amount to anything, but her paralanguage skills are second to none.

Vases sprout fresh flowers. A blue and white tea set rests on a sideboard. The flat is larger on the inside than on the outside, and now features a large picture window charmed with the same view of the Thames that can be seen through the Minister's real window. The large ventilation shafts have all been demolished and replaced with multiple small sheet-metal tubes.

The trouble is, it wasn't the ventilation shaft that broke her arm. It was the Ministry employee performing his authorised duties. Maybe Macnair. Maybe not.

"Lovely prison," Hermione murmurs. The bed is separated from the main living area by a shoji-style screen. It is currently folded all the way back, no doubt left in that position to better show off the revamped décor. "This is just," Hermione begins, groping for a word that captures the utter absurdity of her life, "Odd."

The bed is inviting. Minerva, following Hermione's gaze, leads her toward it.

Hermione allows Minerva to remove her boots and her belt, to settle pillows around her. Hermione's gaze falls on the floor beside the bed. "You were right there," she says.

"Yes," Minerva answers. "Tea?"

"No, thank you," Hermione says. "Naked."

Minerva stills. She has been rummaging among the drawers that, apparently, hold Hermione's new nightclothes.

Christmas and the New Year have come and gone while Hermione hovered in a half-life, flitting back and forth between her own body and the ring that keeps her bound to something on this earth. To Minerva. And after being awakened, after the elf-magic Hermione suspects, she remained in the infirmary for a long, slow recovery.

If recovery is the word for it.

"Yes," Minerva says.

"You were right there, naked, and I don't even remember what you looked like. I mean," Hermione's voice rises in exasperation as she gestures with a slicing motion of her left hand, "Right there!"

Slowly, deliberately, never taking her eyes off Hermione, Minerva unbuttons her blouse.

"D'ye want to remember, Jane?" She asks.

Minerva's white cotton blouse lands softly on the jade green carpet. Hermione is spellbound.

 _Yes. I want you now and damn the consequences. Run, little one. Run for your life._

She reaches around her back with young, strong arms and makes short work of the hook-and-eye clasp there. Then the lingerie is on the floor, and the charmed sunlight is shining on Minerva's snowy skin, her full breasts tipped in wrenchingly familiar pink. She thought it would all be different. She thought the young body would seem foreign to her.

Hermione finds that she is crying again. _Minerva, I need you. Minerva, I'm sorry._

"You were wrong, you know," Minerva says. The slacks drift down off her narrow hips and are left behind with a single, graceful step toward the bed. Minerva's thumbs are at the elastic waistband of her knickers, hooking in just below the hipbones and sliding the slight piece of fabric down, down, down to the tops of those long, lean thighs, revealing a wild little copse of near-black curls. "There is something I can do that will make you want to curl up in a wee ball and die. There's something I can do, right now."

Minerva steps out of her last bit of clothing and moves closer to the bed, just beyond the farthest point Hermione's outstretched fingers can reach.

"In fact," Minerva tells her, "There's nothing I can do right now that will _prevent_ you from hating yourself, is there?"

Minerva runs her own fingers through the curls at the juncture of her thighs and shivers. Hermione can see that, bravada be damned, Minerva's hands are trembling.

Hermione rasps in a voice that has passed every semi-conscious moment of a solid month screaming an inconsolable, murderous fury, "You should go. Go now, Minerva. You don't owe me this. I love you. I'm in love with you. I want you to know that, to wear it like armour, to know it beyond question. So go. I'll love you no matter what."

Hermione swallows.

"If it's all the same, Love, I think I am going to stay. And I'm going to make you tell me you love me over and over and over again."

Minerva climbs onto the bed and straddles her.

Hermione takes Minerva by the arms and throws her down on the bed beneath her. She has no idea where she finds the strength to do this. She is surprised to hear herself growling when she does it. And she keeps Minerva's slender wrists firmly captured as she slides a tongue down that long, soft, pink body to plunge it into the warm folds behind the black curls, to lap hard at the erect bundle of nerves there as Minerva bucks her hips and arches her back in pleasure. Hermione explores every crook and crevice and long, hot passage with her demanding tongue, and then she fastens her lips around the unsheathed clitoris once again and suckles it hard, willing it to an inevitable, messy surrender. Minerva hisses through her teeth, then half-laughs and half-gasps, "Aye, love. Aye. I know. I know."


	22. Gnicnad Nehctik - TOWT Chess

A/N: Minerva gets a second chance to make a first impression.

* * *

Private Rooms of Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 2018

* * *

"Time to mate," Hermione says.

"You'll not tire of that, will you?" Minerva asks.

"Why, are you tired of mating?"

"Ha."

"Just ha?"

"Tisn't worth more than one ha."

Hermione has been mated in five moves, four moves, three moves, and on one memorable occasion, two moves. For three months, the mate never took more than ten moves.

She's surly. She knows this. She's surly, resentful, unpleasant to play against, and she cannot bring herself to stop playing.

Their evenings almost always begin with chess.

One time, Minerva sets up the board, Hermione sits down to play white, and all the chess pieces run squealing to the other side of the board, where they attempt to shove their black counterparts back over to Hermione's half.

It would be humiliating, except that Hermione happens to glance up long enough to catch Minerva looking, not at the melee on the chess board, but at her, with such an expression of affectionate despair that it makes Hermione laugh out loud just for joy. Interestingly, this stops the mutineers in their tracks. They guiltily slink back to their assigned positions.

"Time for the slaughter of the innocents," Hermione says.

"Alas," Minerva replies.

And this is another thing to love about Minerva. She never tells Hermione that her choice of words is inappropriate. She never shames Hermione for the perverse streak of black humor that took root in the war. She never chides Hermione for being insufficiently mournful.

As Minerva lays waste to the tiny kingdom, a thought appears in Hermione's head. It makes a chiming sound, like a Muggle text message. _I could actually tell Minerva that_ , she thinks. _That would be okay._

"Minerva, one of the things I really love about you is that you don't try to control the ways I talk about my own experiences. My," Hermione thrashes about for a better word, but finally settles on, "Childhood trauma." She puts the emphasis on trauma that conveys her soul-deep weariness at having her personal pain in the public domain.

"Hmm," Minerva answers, then, with one graceful motion, says, "Checkmate."

Minerva leans back in the kitchen chair while Hermione tries to herd the chess pieces back into the case. The black bishop sprints across the table and makes a spirited dive for the floor, but Hermione catches him mid-leap and tosses him back in the lidded tin.

Hermione wonders if she has made a mistake. Minerva can react, well, _strangely_ to being reminded that they have known one another since Hermione's childhood.

But this time, Minerva says, "I love you, too, Hermione."

There is no drama in her voice, no hint of passion or desire. It isn't that kind of confession. Minerva is stating, albeit for the first time Hermione can remember, something Hermione has known for most of her life. Minerva McGonagall loves her.

"Fancy a stroll down to the broomsticks for a pint?" Minerva asks.

Hermione does. And they kit themselves out in Hogwarts drag for the walk, complete with robes and pointy hats. It is possible that Hermione's robe makes her look more like Sherlock Holmes than Helga Hufflepuff, but she'll pass well enough for the company they are likely to find down the pub.

Another thing that Hermione loves about Minerva is the sheer, blessed relief of not having to be the smartest person in the room all of the time. The smartest person in the room is responsible for the well-being of everyone else in the room. It wears on a girl.

She wonders if Minerva ever tires of it.

After the great ivory rebellion, Hermione throws herself into the study of chess. She memorizes the famous plays and learns names for the ways Minerva has bested her: fool's mate, scholar's mate, spinster's mate.

Hermione suspects that Minerva made that last one up.

Hermione learns to control the center of the board. She learns the best striking position of each piece.

The next time she and Minerva play chess, Minerva tells her that there are special rules tonight. Minerva must obey the rules of classical chess. Hermione can move her pieces any way she wants.

Minerva beats her in twelve moves.

Hermione eventually starts gaining on Minerva. The games last a bit longer. Hermione vividly recalls the first time Minerva slides her rook across the board, keeps her finger lightly pressed upon its little head, examines the resulting pattern, and thoughtfully pulls her rook back into its original position.

The first time Hermione puts Minerva's king in check, she is shocked to hear Minerva's cry of, "Well done, you!"

Of course, the next day, she is mated in four moves again. Hermione has merely earned the right to be wiped out without mercy, rather than buoyed along.

Between the chess game and the massage, talk ranges widely. Minerva is an ardent researcher. Hermione often catches her drying her hands distractedly on a towel so that she can jot down an insight before finishing the dishes. She reads her hypotheses aloud to Hermione, testing the words to see that they are clear. Minerva can be caught by an idea so thoroughly that Hermione arrives to find her stalking her own office, pacing away the energy that wants to be down in the transfiguration lab setting up her next experiment _right now._

More than once, Hermione throws the makings of the planned meal into the small refrigerator and shoos Minerva out the door.

"Go. Scoot, now! I'll be down with some sandwiches and tea at half past," she says, with a friendly shove of encouragement. She might as easily join Minerva right away, and get the house elves to prepare the food. But Hermione never does that. She puts together a good meal by hand, hums to herself while she's at it, because she knows how much mustard is too much for Minerva's cold roast beef on a roll. And she knows what kind of pickle she's going to want with the roast beef, which is a different pickle than she likes for the thin-sliced mutton.

She knows when Minerva has been frowning at the fit of her robes and it's going to be egg-and-cress with some yogurt on the side.

She knows, on those evenings when Hermione's hands on Minerva's scalp elicit a soft moan of pleasure, that she might put those hands anywhere she likes on Minerva's body. And be welcome. Something in Hermione rebels at doing so, however. It is clearly what Minerva expects her to do. Minerva, who can control most of her world down to the subatomic level, does need to be told _nope_ every once in a while.

Then, one night, Hermione arrives with the makings of a simple stir-fry, which she deposits on the enameled steel countertop. Minerva sets up the chess board in the usual place, talking while she does of staff woes (few) and recalcitrant teenagers (many) and the general state of the Wizarding world (no worse than usual and better than sometimes).

Hermione sits down at the board and announces that tonight, there shall be special rules.

"Tonight, Minerva, you will have a choice. You can capture pieces on the board, or," Hermione licks her lips and steels her resolve, "Or, you may allow me to retain the captured piece in exchange for a single article of my clothing."

Minerva does that thing that can only be described as "peering" over the top of her square spectacles. Hermione has never found another way to say that. She thinks the word peering has come to apply only to one situation, and it involves Minerva McGonagall and square spectacles. It should be called "Minerva-ing".

It is certainly oxymoronic. The last thing anyone on the receiving end of that look ever feels like is Minerva's peer.

Minerva fishes two pawns out of the tin, mixes them up behind her back, and presents two closed fists to Hermione. As Hermione reaches out to make her choice, Minerva says, very quietly, "Tis no game, Hermione."

And Hermione, knowing that those words are, in fact, a question, gently lifts Minerva's left fist to her cheek, cradles it in both of her hands, runs slightly parted lips over the thin, soft skin in a chain of dry kisses, and realizes that she has closed her eyes only when the tiny, muffled voice pipes, "Get a room!"

Minerva releases the black pawn into Hermione's hand.

"You are familiar, no doubt, with the phrase _playing for keeps_?" Hermione asks.

Minerva doesn't quite manage to keep the smile from smoothing her lips. "Oh, aye. I know that one."

* * *

Private Rooms of Jane Puckle, Ministry of Magic, London, 1954

* * *

Hermione is having her breasts fondled, but in an oddly specific way. She knows what Minerva is doing. Having survived one explosive orgasm and been gently guided through a long, languid follow-up orgasm, Minerva has zoomed through a remarkably short recovery period of gasping and gazing, and gone directly to blissfully relaxed and playful. So, naturally, she is attempting to make her own nipples touch Hermione's nipples so she can feel what it's like to press them together at their most sensitive spot. Spots.

Hermione asks anyway.

"Enjoying yourself, Lintie?"

"Yes," Minerva answers. Her response has the brevity and precision characteristic of one deeply engaged in something more interesting than the question.

Hermione lies on her side. Minerva pushes her into the pillows to get a better angle on the problem. The tip of Minerva's tongue has slipped adorably out of her mouth. She is the picture of concentration.

"Love, I'm afraid there is no spell that can overcome certain combinations of time and gravity," Hermione says, as her left breast slips (not unpleasantly) past Minerva's right breast and flops toward the mattress. Hermione's breasts are not large, and it is not an impressive flop, but it does demonstrate a complete lack of surface tension in the flesh.

Minerva stops, considers. Her eyebrows come together and the first glimmers of her characteristic frown lines appear.

Then she takes one of Hermione's breasts in both of her hands, kisses the nipple, reverently suckles it for a breathtaking forty-five seconds, then mutters something to it with the nipple still held between her lips. The vibration of the words sends a corresponding shock of electricity down Hermione's spine, where it grounds itself in her pubic bone.

Then, because things with breasts generally happen this way, Minerva repeats her action with the other breast.

Minerva screws up her face in concentration. Hermione thinks she looks like the world's prettiest monkey. Then she places one hand on each of Hermione's breasts. Hermione's nipples rub against Minerva's palms.

" _Levimamaris_ ," Minerva says. She is entirely serious.

And then Hermione's breasts move away from the mattress about two and a half inches each, neatly matching Minerva's own young, unbowed lovelies. Minerva removes her guiding hands and pushes her own breasts into Hermione's, nipple meeting nipple, so that each tiny balance adjustment is exquisite friction.

"Is now," Minerva says.

Hermione says nothing. There is far, far too much that she wants to say, needs to say. She wants to send coded messages through time about how wretched and confused and sorry she is. Sorry to be so needy. Sorry for using her. Sorry for loving her.

She knows that she does. She wishes she could pinpoint that moment when the precocious brat walked out of the room and _Minerva_ walked back in. It caught her off guard. But that is no excuse. This love is selfish.

This love asks too much of one too young.

"You think too much," Minerva tells her.

"You're right," Hermione says, "You're always right."

And then, it happens.

Minerva slips an arm under her head, looms over her just a little bit, cradles her in the crook of her elbow. She kisses Hermione, starting slow and tender, but progressing almost immediately to the kind of full-tongue, open-mouth, complete penetration thrust-and-retreat kissing that only happens when you are fifteen and you can't do anything else, so you kiss like this for as long as you can hold your breath, because it just feels so damned good you can't stop until lack of oxygen makes it absolutely necessary. So you stop, take a deep breath, and start kissing again.

Hermione feels Minerva's elegant fingers lightly tickle a trail down her belly, detour to take in the curve of one thigh, and then sweep back up to brush through the dark hairs between Hermione's legs. The hand pushes one leg to the side, stops kissing long enough to whisper, "Spread your legs for me, Jane," and then kisses her again while her fingers slide into the swollen damp flesh there, down into the folds and recesses to find the small amount of moisture Hermione's body can still produce at these times.

Minerva bends her own knee and pulls her head back while she plunges two fingers into herself, moving her hips up and down on them with half-lidded eyes. She watches Hermione through the lowered lashes and makes no attempt to hide her own mounting excitement.

But before she is carried away, she moves those two slick fingers from inside herself to inside Hermione, slowly and carefully pumping in and out of that welcoming place.

It.

Feels.

So.

Good.

Hermione responds, moves her hips against Minerva's hands, knows precisely when Minerva's thumb will take control of Hermione's clitoris, will circle it gently but firmly while chills run through Hermione's body, tingling at every extremity, and deepening the pleasure at her center. Oh, she knows this. She knows the look on Minerva's face, the focus on someplace deep within her own mind as all her awareness is channeled through her fingers. She knows the position, the rhythm, the pace, the pressure, the size and shape of the fingers within her, the feel of her inner lips parting to surround the pad of that thumb.

She knows the sound of her own voice as it comes out of her mouth, involuntarily, grunting and animal and entirely dependent on Minerva to make this happen.

She knows the keening ecstasy Minerva draws from her as she comes, long, loud, the thud of her hips against the mattress and the pulse of her sex as it throbs against Minerva's insistent fingers. Oh, gods. Yes and yes and yes again.

Minerva tightens her grip on Hermione's shoulders, presses her body closer, but doesn't remove her hand from Hermione's aching center as the aftershocks make her buck and jerk and whine.

Hermione licks her dry lips.

"Hello, Minerva," she says. Then she cups Minerva's cheek in the palm of her hand and says, "Love, there's something I need you to remember."

Minerva kisses the palm and asks, "What?"

"This," Hermione says. "As long as you live, remember this."

* * *

Private Rooms of Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 2018

* * *

It starts with Hermione's knight. Minerva takes it with a bishop, then puts her bishop back where it started and, with a flick of her wand, removes Hermione's bra.

Hermione twitches. It hasn't occurred to her that Minerva might start removing clothing from the inside out.

Minerva takes two pawns, which she claims the old-fashioned way. Then she takes a rook with her queen, hesitates, thinks about it, and puts her queen back where she started.

Hermione's knickers disappear.

And leaves Hermione with the perfect opportunity to take the queen and put Minerva's king in check while she's at it.

Instead, Hermione laughs. She would take a drink, except that Minerva hasn't poured liquor tonight. She grabs up her protesting king, throws him over her left shoulder, and says, "Checkmate. Let's go make love now."

"Took you long enough," Minerva answers.

And, as simply as that, Minerva stands up and leads Hermione by the hand into a good-sized, drafty bedroom. It is dark.

Minerva stops when they've gone halfway to the bed and puts her arms around Hermione in that dark. Hermione automatically slips her arms around Minerva's shoulders and, without fuss, Minerva kisses her.

Hermione has been kissed before.

So she doesn't understand why this one sends shivering sparks throughout her body; why Minerva's hands at her lower back trail lightning across the skin. And she doesn't even have words to describe the soft weight of Minerva's breasts pressed against her, of Minerva's hands pressing firmly into her back so that she can, astonishingly, grind the juncture of her thighs ever so subtly against Hermione's hipbone. Why does the catch of breath in Minerva's throat make her feel the strength in her own shoulders and thighs?

Hermione pulls free of the kiss. It probably isn't the hardest thing she's ever done, but nothing harder leaps immediately to mind. She flicks a hand at the fireplace. Heat and light spring to life. Hermione says, "I want to see you. All of you."

"Gryffindor to the end, brave girl," Minerva says. And she manages to make it both ironic and unironic at the same time. She nods toward the bed. "After you."

Hermione sheds the outer robe and rejects modesty in favor of empirical observation. Firm mattress. Well-loved blankets. Tellingly new pillows. Extremely attentive audience.

"I hate this part," she blurts.

"Don't," Minerva husks. "I love this part."

Stock phrases present themselves. _Staring openly. Drinking it in. Hungry._

The want makes it easier. Hermione understands that she isn't waiting for something to begin. It's begun. She curls up among the pillows and makes herself comfortable there. She remembers how to look like someone whose dreams are coming true. Yes, this feels natural. Yes, this feels right.

Minerva has not moved. "All of you," Hermione reminds her.

Minerva hesitates at the clasp of her inner robes, "You know that I am old, Hermione. Very old."

"Here. Now. Unclothed," Hermione pats the bed beside her and feels like she's coaxing something feral to take food from her hand.

When the boot hits her a few moments later, she reflects that it is probably her own fault for humming, "You Can Leave Your Hat On".

Yes, Minerva is old. She's a witch, so her years aren't what they would be on a Muggle. But she is old. Hermione looks at Minerva's body and sees – what? She sees a half-dozen possible ways to bring Minerva physical pleasure. She sees a fun fair, and all the prizes are Minerva. She sees the future, both immediate and far distant.

Minerva pauses to pull back the covers, but Hermione meets her at the edge of the mattress, sits up so that she can hold Minerva's hips in her hands. She spreads her legs just enough for Minerva to stand between them. She looks into that guarded, hopeful face. Minerva's face seems more naked in this moment than their bodies are. She lifts and kisses each of Minerva's breasts.

Minerva shivers.

Hermione flashes her cheekiest grin and says, "Crime of opportunity."

Minerva's fingers thread through Hermione's unruly curls. She tips Hermione's face up, gently, with two thumbs caressing Hermione's cheekbones. She whispers, "How do I feel about you, Hermione? No blether. Tell me."

"You love me," Hermione says, "You love me and you want me."

Minerva smiles. Radiantly. "Yes, for my sins, I do."

They meet under the blankets. They kiss long and hard, like teenagers whose parents might be coming home any minute. They make themselves breathless with the kissing and fondling and stroking and marveling,

Minerva slips one arm under Hermione's head and cradles her in the crook of her elbow.

"There will be," she says, "Time for the doing of all we've been dreaming. But this time, there is something I need. Please. Indulge me?"

Hmm. Hermione's mind swims with ideas. She wants to do everything she's ever heard of. All at the same time. But the thing she most wants to do is indulge Minerva.

"Anything you want," she says.

And Minerva moves up over her a little bit. They kiss, and Hermione feels Minerva's elegant fingers ghost over the skin of her belly, detour around the curve of a thigh, and move back up into the dark hairs between her legs. The hand presses against her thigh. "Spread your legs for me," she says.

Hermione does. And she can feel the impact of Minerva's words in a hot, wet gush that flows out of her. Minerva's fingers are there, tracing trails in the little stream of excitement that makes a path across her upper thigh. One finger pushes into the folds to invade every tender crevice. Hermione becomes aware of her own scent, how it fills the room, how it makes Minerva's breath come in deep and greedy gulps.

Hermione tilts her hips in invitation. Minerva enters her. Hermione's hips lift off the bed. The spasm of excited pleasure that concentrates in her vagina is almost painful. She clenches. Minerva slows.

"No," Hermione says, "I mean yes. Don't stop. Please."

Minerva adds a finger. She thrusts in and out of Hermione in long, sure strokes. There is something proprietary about Minerva's fingers. These are fingers that feel they have a perfect right to be inside her.

The wet and the thrust make rude and wonderful sounds as the fingers work magic inside of her. Then it stops, and Hermione knows that she has been moaning because the moan suddenly stops, too. Minerva has pushed the blankets back from their overheated bodies. Hermione watches as she bends one knee. Slowly, Minerva slips those slick fingers into herself. She hisses through her teeth and makes her own rude and wonderful sounds as she ripples her hips through the motion and whines each time her own wrist makes contact with her erect little clitoris.

Here, now. What's all this? Hermione hasn't seen this yet, but now she stares. It is the most astonishing thing so far. It's adorable. Hermione has decided to name it _Pip_. She is in love with that plucky little bundle of erectile tissue.

But then Minerva is filling her up again. Minerva is still a little wild-eyed from her own explorations. And Hermione's joy at being the cause of that wanton, breathless expression travels through her and erupts from her mouth as laughter. The laughter makes her clench around Minerva's fingers, and that feels so good that she clenches again, on purpose, concentrating on the control of those muscles. She opens her eyes to watch Minerva watching her. They are both smiling like idiots.

And then Minerva moves her thumb around, pushes through the outer folds, and finds the place that makes Hermione roar.

Hermione is surprised that Minerva does not reclaim her hand as soon as the first wave passes. Instead, Minerva eases her through the long, low waves that follow, so long and so gentle that, before Hermione knows what's happening, she has arched her back and pushed into the pressure to crest again.

Afterward, Minerva kisses her. There is, Hermione muses, nothing special about the kiss. It's not the passionate, possessive invasion of the first kisses. It's just a little there-I've-made-you-come-twice-and-I'm-still-interested-in-you, you-make-me-happy kiss. It may be the best kiss Hermione has ever had in her life.

Minerva slowly slips her fingers out of Hermione. She rests her hand there, between Hermione's legs, and shifts so that she is no longer supporting so much of her own weight. "Thank you," she says.

Hermione still hasn't caught her breath. "Well, you were right about having the knowin' of it," Hermione tells the ceiling, as Minerva's cheek comes to rest in the hollow right below her shoulder. 'You may have been wrong about the other thing, though."

"Mmm," Minerva replies, snuggling closer.

Hermione isn't sure what she's supposed to be doing now. She knows what she _wants_ to be doing now, or at least quite soon, but the social conventions of this situation aren't clear to her.

Minerva is patting her mound as one would pat an agitated puppy.

"I'm going to take a wee rest, here," she tells Hermione, "While you mentally review everything you've ever read about cunnilingus."

 _And they say Minerva McGonagall can't read minds._


	23. Igam Eht Fo Tfig Eht - TOW Yes

A/N: Only 103,331 words later, I make good on a promise.

* * *

Five Minutes After The End Of The Previous Chapter

* * *

Tis done.

The years have made Minerva a sieve, a fine mesh that only admits desires small and obtainable. She's learned to – well. She's learned to be the person she needed to be to win the battles she needed to win. Very great ideals and very small children have depended on this.

And now?

Minerva is having the opposite of a panic attack. She's debilitated by joy. She wants to tether herself on the lifelines of loneliness and resolve; of purpose and practicality. Because, oh, how her heart is spoiling to soar.

It might. It might launch and leave this earth behind. It might fling her beyond hope of return.

And now the beloved heart beats beneath her. Freckles, familiar constellations scattered across an ivory heaven tempt her fingers to trace old trails. _Let go, now. Let go._ These stars will lead her home.

* * *

Minerva brushes the curls away from Her forehead. Her. Hermione. Jane.

They are, in this moment, content to push their pillows together and look closely at one another, the way that friends cannot and lovers must. Minerva loves the fierce intelligence behind those brown eyes. She trusts the fierce intelligence behind those brown eyes. It may be the only thing in this world other than herself she has ever truly trusted. This is no choice she is making, like the choices she has made to have faith in Albus or Wilhelmina or Boban. This is a kenning, a knowing she has of the rightness of something, the way her cat self knows how and when and where to leap in ways that the witch needs calculus to contemplate.

And this is that.

Albus used to caution her, whenever she questioned his choice not to confide his knowledge of the future to those he sent to war, that many things are important, and none of us has any earthly idea what they may be. All of fate depends on the freedom to make one's own choices.

So. Hermione. She loves Hermione, who may someday choose to become Jane. And Minerva can relax, at last, because Hermione will sort that.

She is gently eased down. Hermione's guiding hands make the caresses into commands as they move Minerva's hips in a way that the shoulders must follow. Minerva shouldn't be thinking of kids or of sweet shops, but she is, because Hermione's face glows with anticipation. Her eyes are wide. Her pupils are large. The blood rushes into her cheeks even as she keeps to the slow, deliberate pace of her preparations.

"Your mouth is watering," Minerva whispers to her. Hermione is arranging the pillows behind Minerva to make sure she is comfortable. Minerva sneaks a kiss upon a passing palm.

"Mmm-hmm," Hermione agrees.

"In anticipation of a treat you've never tried?"

"I have excellent visualization skills," Hermione tells her. She's propped on an elbow. She's trailing her fingertips up and down Minerva's body. The touch is too assured to tickle. It doesn't tease. It – recognizes.

 _Hello, bellybutton. I love you. Hello, hipbone. I adore you. Hello, jawline. I worship you. Here, have some kisses. Why, hello, sensitive spot just below the ear. Aren't you lovely? You're tattling to the vagina, aren't you?_

Minerva shivers and squirms under the pressure of Hermione's lips in that place. She threads her fingers through Hermione's hair and encourages a trip up and down the nerves that come so close to the surface. "Ah," Minerva says.

 _Here,_ say Hermione's lips _, take some more messages south for me._

Minerva's hips seek a longed-for pressure in small rolling thrusts. Hermione places an open palm against the pubic bone and answers those thrusts with just the right amount of resistance.

 _There is that face again,_ Minerva thinks. "Methinks you have a lean and hungry look," Minerva says.

"Starving," Hermione admits. "If any decent law has been made these past months, it's by accident. It started out as planning and ended up, well, just me spending all my hours imagining you – "

Hermione trails off, and the anticipation clouds to uncertainty.

"Vagina, labia, clitoris, fanny, pussy, cunny, muff, cunt," Minerva says.

Hermione holds her breath. Minerva smiles.

"Just choose one, love. Or two or three of your own devising. One for each mood, if you like. Say them out loud to me."

 _And the hungry eyes are back. Yes, that's right. You bring that brain back into my bed this minute._

Hermione continues. "- Imagining my mouth covering your vagina, my tongue licking your labia and sucking your clitoris and my face enclosed in your thighs, buried in your fanny, your pussy, your cunny, your muff, your cunt, until it becomes my whole world."

 _How hard am I breathing right now?_ "Erm," Minerva manages. She knows that her body reacted to the word she most longs to hear in heated moments. Her face has gone hot. Her eyes almost ache from the effort to dilate her pupils even wider at the impact of _that_ word spoken by _that_ voice. _Yes, and Hermione has seen. She's understood_. "At this rate, I'll have no secrets left by morning," Minerva confesses, "Plunderer."

Hermione's response is to move between Minerva's legs. Minerva wraps her thighs around Hermione's hips and lets herself be moved and carried by their power. Hermione kisses her, slowly, deeply, reverently. Minerva can almost hear the bell struck as the ritual begins. Oh, yes. Wet kisses and gentle nips upon the tender places on Minerva's neck are accepted with a head thrown back, an exposing of the throat. They thrill precisely as they ought to do. They calm precisely as they ought to do. This surrender is primal. Minerva's mind and body welcome it unconditionally.

The lips move down to the next station, dropping kisses along the breastbone on the way down to her breasts. Minerva gathers them in her own hands and offers them to Hermione's mouth. Ah. Yes. Hermione's hot, wet, eager mouth with the tongue that circles, flicks, flattens into a deep draw that Minerva's body understands instantly. Hermione's mouth with teeth that nibble and scrape once the nipples have made themselves hard and large for her. Hermione's mouth that risks taking her beyond the careful explorations and right up to the edge of pain. Hermione's mouth that smiles even as it remains attached when Minerva's hissing intake of breath and twitching, seeking hips say the words that Minerva's mouth has lost the ability to form.

Minerva's hands find Hermione's mane of misbehaving curls and tangle fingers inside it, loving the texture even as they pursue their urgent purpose. Minerva's skin is alive with tingling, each small hair of her belly is raised and alert, a sensory organ in service of the territory between her legs.

"Please," she hears herself begging, "Soon. Now."

Hermione does not rush. She compassionately grants this favor and brushes her lips along the trail of small hairs that lead down. She moves Minerva's legs a little farther apart and arranges them both into comfortable positions. She looks at Minerva's spread outer lips, her inner lips dark pink and swollen beyond the outer. Minerva watches the thoughts move across Hermione's face as she gravely considers.

"You're not supposed to be the one in control, right now," Minerva tells her, and winces at the fearfulness of her confession.

"Really?" Hermione looks up from the object of her immediate concern and gives Minerva her complete, loving attention, "That wasn't in the reading." She shifts slightly and comes up with a wand, which she winds up into her hair until it sticks fast there. Then she moves two fingers up and down Minerva's cleft, never taking her focus off Minerva's face, and the fingers leave little puddles of moisture in the spots that want to be wet, and give heat to the spots that want to be warm. "I do have one request, though."

"What is that?" Minerva asks. She's not learned, in all her years, to school the impatience from her voice.

"Don't rush. Hold out. Feel free to make me work for this," Hermione tells her.

And then, without waiting for a response, Hermione dips her head down and moves the flat of her tongue into Minerva's inner folds.

 _Warm. Rough. Too light, now. Like this._

Minerva pushes into the tongue.

 _Oh, yes._

Hermione's tongue reaches far inside Minerva, thrusting and lapping. She finds her way past the pubic bone and reaches beyond, just the tip of the tongue, circling the entry there and sending shockwaves of pleasure into Minerva's surprised brain.

She licks, savors, nuzzles, kisses, suckles, hums. She moves side to side. She circles. She moves up and down and finds a mutual rhythm, then challenges with another motion, another rhythm, and licks the hood above Minerva's clitoris, finds the deep base with the probing tip of her tongue and strokes it. And then she takes the whole erect bundle into her mouth and sucks it, kneads it gently between her lips and tongue. Minerva moves with her, now, panting, pulling, pushing, murmuring prayers for blessed release.

"Hermione," she moans, "Please - let me - I want to - make it - please. Ah. Yes!"

Hermione patiently and resolutely repeats the thing that has brought Minerva to _yes._

Her pleas become earthier, louder, higher, utterly beyond her control.

Hermione lifts Minerva's hips off the mattress and steadies them between mouth and hands while she patiently and resolutely repeats the thing that has brought Minerva to _yes._

She comes.

She comes keening and crashing and crying and thrashing.

She comes feeling as if Hermione's mouth were the only thing still anchoring her soul to her body.

She comes even while she waits for the raw emotions to coalesce into forms she can share with the woman now settling her welcome weight upon Minerva's body. When they have, she opens her eyes.

Tis begun.


	24. Yrotsih - TOW Feck

A/N: All Those Stupid Love Songs Start Making Sense

* * *

 **Private Rooms of Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 2018**

* * *

"Where did you learn to use chopsticks?"

"I don't spend all my time locked up in a castle, you know."

They are picnicking in bed.

Minerva begins the process of transferring all the green peppers on her plate to Hermione's plate. Then she steals two of Hermione's snow peas.

* * *

 **A Few Minutes Ago**

* * *

After Minerva's post-coital nap, she wakes up alone, talks her bones out of bed and into a dressing gown, and eases herself into the kitchen to get a drink of water because if she doesn't move about after all that exertion, she'll go stiff as a broom in the morning

Hermione is in the kitchen, stir-frying teriyaki beef in a wok, and naked except for a tartan apron.

Minerva blinks.

Hermione is in the kitchen, stir-frying teriyaki beef in a wok, and naked except for a tartan apron.

Minerva has never appreciated the amount of stirring involved in a stir-fry before, nor the relationship between movement of the hands and movement of the human hind quarters. She is appreciating it now.

"Hermione," Minerva says.

"Hmm?" Hermione responds without looking away from her task. She flips bits of quick-cooking beef by shaking the whole wok and gets a kind of waving toss of the food for her trouble. Minerva, for her trouble, gets palpitations.

"I was thinking that we might whisk up some omelets on Wednesday."

"Good plan," Hermione agrees.

* * *

 **And Now**

* * *

They sit up in Minerva's small bed. White porcelain plates balance on their laps.

"So," Hermione says, after plowing her way through all of Minerva's rejected green peppers, "There will be a next time, because we'll be having omelets. And, presumably, I will be wearing nothing but your apron again so that you might watch my arse jiggle while I whisk."

"Good plan," Minerva says. The meal is delicious. Bed is lovely. The blankets are soft, the pillows are fresh, the world smells like sex and exotic spices. Minerva's cat self wants to stretch out and purr for a good, long while. She'll have to speak with Hermione about the proper way to stroke her in cat form. There is no way Hermione will be able to resist doing so, not with her affinity for felines. Or, maybe, she'll just write a book on it. Forbid Hermione to read it. Hide it in the most secure library in the United Kingdom. That ought to do it.

Hermione has deposited her empty plate upon a bed stand and is silently scrutinizing Minerva. It takes two or three heartbeats before the dawn breaks.

"Next time and the time after that and the time after that," Minerva says. "Many next times. All of the next times you have available." She chases the last few bits of scallion and rice around her plate. An unvoiced sticking charm would be just the thing right now, but she is being watched much too closely and must soldier through on dexterity alone.

Hermione doesn't reply. But her face relaxes and she wiggles her toes, which have been lacquered a pinkish-gold color and glint in the low lamplight.

Minerva finishes her food and banishes both plates. "What next?" She asks. She asks this a bit more eagerly than she imagined she would. In fact, she squeaks it.

"Well," Hermione says, "Tell me everything there is to know about yourself."

Minerva laughs long and hard, not because anything is that funny, but because nature does this to a sated body in love, when the thing has happened and the floodgates of emotion are wide open. _Ach, ye've gone giddy, girl._ She rubs her face with both hands, feels the heat in her cheeks, and makes the universal face-pulling gesture of someone trying to wipe away the evidence of strong emotion. Then she pats Hermione's hand. "T'would be cheating," she says.

"Tell me _anything_ you know about yourself, then."

Minerva considers this for quite a while. "All right. Let's see. Mara taught me the chopsticks after she returned from the Harpies' International League tour in fifty-four. And," Minerva waves her hand in the air as if clearing the millions of facts that are swarming like gnats, "And I loathe lingerie shopping. Loathe it. I have to travel far afield, usually London, usually Muggle shops, to find a stranger who'll nae blush and stammer when asking my cup size."

"Seriously? Me, too! Let's go next Sunday," Hermione suggests, "I promise to make it worth your while. No, wait, I've got a thing. And the following week will be double-shifts at the Ministry before we launch the new legislation. Bother. I wish we had our old time-turner. Everything would be simpler."

Hermione slides gracefully around to rest face-up, with her feet on the pillow while her head hangs off the foot of the bed. Her curls touch the floor. Minerva is determined not to be discomfited by this baffling demeanor. This might be easier were Hermione not, currently, nude.

"Oh, I don't think it would," Minerva says.

Minerva does the mental preparation necessary to arrange herself upon the mattress so as to be speaking with Hermione face-to-face, rather than face-to-foot. She opts to disguise this as a languorous trail of kisses starting at Hermione's nearby knees, trailing six kisses up a glorious thigh, alighting with the briefest brush of lips at the apex of those thighs - and here, the plan goes awry.

* * *

 **Ministry of Magic, London, 1954**

* * *

Jane falls asleep well enough before the end of the workday for Minerva to be out among the hoi polloi of Unlikely Weather Disturbances just as they are thinking of ways to skive for the next hour or so.

"Oi, Blishwick, Time Lab in ten minutes. Bring food," Minerva whispers in a prominent ear.

"But, I'm supposed to be cataloging proph – "

"Boring."

"Too right, but, Urquart – "

"Is all tucked up with a nice glass of milk. Move it," she claps her hands smartly together two times, "Chop chop!"

* * *

"Pssst! Williams! Fancy staying up all night doing bad things with me and Blishy?"

"Absolutely. What do I tell – "

"You'll think of something appropriately Slytherin, I'm sure. Time Lab. Eight minutes. We may have to misuse some Muggle artifacts."

"Like?"

"The gramophone. Slip it in your pocket, would you?"

* * *

"Turk – "

"Way ahead of you, Boss. Do me a favor and floo my mum? Tell her I've got to stay up all night having my knob polished for world peace."

"So Love Chamber duty is working out for you, then?"

"You're just pretending to like me to get at my containment spells, aren't you?"

"Yes. Hop to it."

* * *

In a large office overlooking London, a neatly folded square of parchment appears on a silver salver. Wilhelmina Tuft does not take her eyes off the auto-quill until the paragraph she has just dictated is complete, absently lifting the memo with two fingers and dangling it there until the final full stop is in place.

She opens the square of parchment, reads it, and places it in a second silver salver on the opposite side of her desk. It glows briefly, then burns to a fine ash. She taps the middle finger of her wand hand on the desk.

 _Pop_

"Minister?" Feck appears at her elbow.

"Feck, darling, the children are having a rumpus in the Time Lab tonight. Do try to keep them from blowing up the world."

"Naturally," Feck replies.

 _Pop_

* * *

 _When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie_

 _That's Amore!_

Minerva has sketched out the procedure for retrieving the thing that is stored within Jane's watch. But before they try it, they've got to set up a containment area that will stop a blowback, or anything like a blowback, or anything unlike a blowback. And before they do that, they've got to finish singing along to Blishy's new record.

It's the silliest song Minerva has ever heard.

So why does it make perfect sense?

 _Pop_

"Fish and chips!" Turk cries. There's a house-elf under the pyramid of steaming food, looking like a short, wrinkled, Whitechapel-inflected version of Carmen Miranda.

They've got the feast on the table and are greasy up to their elbows when the song changes to Doris Day's _Secret Love._ Aye, this sudden insight into insipid popular music is _the_ cross Minerva will have to bear in exchange for the thrill of being able to taste Jane when she licks her fingers.

Williams has ventured a witticism. "Do your fingers taste like fish, McGonagall?" He snickers. The other lads, to their everlasting credit, do not.

Minerva slowly slips her long middle finger between her lips and sucks on it. Thoughtfully. She's caught Williams in a staring contest and does not release him, though he swallows nervously in the lengthening silence. Then, just as slowly, she eases her finger out of her mouth. "My fingers," she tells him, "Taste like world peace."

 _Pop_

* * *

 **Private Rooms of Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 2018**

* * *

Minerva considers the landscape. And landscape is the correct word, here, because the small patch of feminine curls before her has been ruthlessly shaped into a topiary. Before, when all of history depended on the memorable performance of a single sexual act, Minerva had not the luxury of contemplation. Now, she sees the pink lips smooth and shaven - no - _waxed_ nearly to a state of pre-adolescence.

This is a common ritual these days. It must also be a painful one. And expensive. And dangerous. Many a young woman in her care has required medical attention as a result of experiments with do-it-yourself nostrums.

Hermione's public self, indeed, the entire outward appearance of modern witches, would have seemed overtly sexual in Minerva's day.

In Minerva's _youth_. She reminds herself that this is still her day. The ferociously groomed example of feminine genitalia quivering beneath her sensitive lips is evidence enough of that.

Minerva's public self is tightly controlled. Minerva keeps herself to herself. However, though Minerva's nether curls have been sometimes clipped or razored to ease access or accommodate a bathing costume, they have generally grown wild as the ancient Caledonian forests.

Choosing to conceal or reveal for one's own ends is a woman's prerogative, of course. But the land between Hermione's legs has been clear-cut, strip-mined, commodified. _No, this will not do._

Hermione's thighs have relaxed and drifted ever-so-slightly apart. One of Hermione's hands seeks Minerva's. They clasp. Minerva ducks under a bent knee and faces the thing squarely. Hermione pulls herself up to rest on her elbows. _She wants to see me_ , Minerva thinks. _Of course she does._ Even as Minerva's lips nuzzle the tender inner flesh, her eyes stay open and focused on Hermione's face.

Which is apprehensive. Maybe even fearful. Minerva leaves the bit she has been laving with a quick kiss and lifts one eyebrow in query. Well, that had an effect. Good or bad, Minerva cannot tell. The glands seem to have liked it. Hermione's aroused scent is very clear on that. The mind is less certain. Minerva allows the breath of her words to brush Hermione's intimate flesh. "What is the greatest number of orgasms you have had in one day?" She asks.

"Two," Hermione answers.

"So, today tied a world record?"

"No."

Minerva nods. _Today set the world record_.

"How often have you imagined me in this position, Love?" Minerva asks. She illustrates her meaning with a swipe of her tongue from Hermione's soaked opening to the tip of her clitoris.

"Ahh," Hermione says, getting distracted halfway through her response. "A-all of them."

 _Well, she can't mean that. All of what? All the times she's imagined being with me? All the orgasms she's ever had? Surely not._

 _"_ Lately," Hermione amends, "Maybe ten years?"

"I see." Minerva tries not to let her voice betray the tremendous satisfaction of that. "And here I am," she says. She uses her fingers to pull back some of the creamy skin and fastens her lips gently around the exposed nerve center. She uses tongue and lips to make a warm, wet place for it to twitch and swell.

"Oh," Hermione says.

Minerva carefully tends the flesh in her mouth. She watches Hermione's face and body respond to this. She notes how quickly the responses accelerate when Hermione's eyes are open and looking back at her. She carefully modulates her approach until there is whimpering, and then there is begging, and, finally, there is a strong, young body and mind taking hold of her and controlling the contact, satisfying itself on her supplicant tongue and lips and mouth and chin while demanding, "Fuck. Me. Now. God _damn_ , you. NOW!"

Minerva obediently takes the clitoris back into her mouth and rides the roaring violence that follows, perfectly content.

* * *

 **Private Rooms of Jane Puckle, Ministry of Magic, London, 1954**

* * *

Hermione is awakened by the creeping awareness that she is being watched. The thing to do, in these circumstances, is not to look slowly around for whatever's watching you. Doing so will guarantee a sudden, jumping fright. No, the thing to do is to stare straight ahead and say, "Whatever you are, state your business or face the consequences."

It is vitally important to mean it, however.

"Master Hermione is elf-blessed," says the watcher.

She knows that voice. "Feck?" She turns over in bed to find the house-elf crouching on the mattress beside her. There is a certain amount of flinching, despite her precautions. "What's wrong? What is it?"

"How is Master Hermione elf-blessed? Feck does not remember blessing Master Hermione."

Hermione registers the absence of Minerva and is relieved. House-elves go where they will, and it isn't likely that Hermione enjoys true privacy in any case. But one does want to keep up appearances, especially when one is in 1954. "I don't know," she yawns, "Maybe I was blessed by some other house-elf."

The crouching takes on an aspect of impending motion. The voice deepens. "No. Master Hermione is _elf-blessed_."

"Ah. Right. Processing," she says. She rubs the sleep out of her eyes with the heels of her hands. "I know and love many house-elves. This certainly feels like a blessing."

Feck snorts.

"I don't understand, Feck. Please explain it to me."

"All elves. All. All elves alive to make such a blessing. Together."

Hermione digests this. All elves alive to make such a blessing together. _Well, fancy that._ "Is it a problem for you, Feck?"

More snorting.

"You don't have to answer that. I suspect I already know," she swallows against the bitterness that rises in her throat. _Cleaning up messes, indeed._ Between Minerva's thrice-cursed wedding ring/homing device/horcrux and, apparently, mysterious elf-blessings, Hermione has the feeling that the world is conspiring against her. Or would that be _for_ her?

Feck speaks again, "The young ones are in the Time Lab playing with Master Hermione's Time-Thing."

"What?" Hermione tries to spring out of bed and fails rather spectacularly. When Feck has levitated her back to the mattress and examined her (with gigantic eyes that can see in the dark) for injuries, Hermione groans, "You have to take me down there."

"No, I don't," Feck tells her.

"They must stop."

"No, they don't."

"Feck, whatever orders you've been given, I have to go – "

"No, you don't," Feck says, "Feck is making sure the children don't blow up the world."

Hermione freezes. Feck's voice has just done an eerie imitation of Wilhelmina Tuft. She flicks on the lamp. She wishes, not for the first time these last few years, that she could get away with smoking cigarettes. Everyone else does. And it fills so many of life's little social gaps. Actually, she wishes she had a nice, fat pipe stuffed with wizard's tobacco. "Bloody hell," she says. "Feck, kindly pour me a largish tumbler of something alcoholic. You and I need to talk about what's in the Time-Thing."

* * *

 **Private Rooms of Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 2018**

* * *

"Staying or going?" Hermione asks.

She's just come from the privy and is drying her hands on a towel. It takes Minerva a beat or two to understand that Hermione isn't asking her preference. She's asking her permission.

"Stay, if it's all the same to you," she says.

Hermione pauses mid-floor, leaves off examining her fingernails, cocks her head up just enough to look at Minerva through veils of lowered lashes and cascading curls. Minerva's voice, in sleep and in love and in every other damn thing, has gone into that gentle register; the one she thought she'd lost forever and is surprised to hear again. "There are only so many of these nights in a life. And tomorrow is Sunday."

Hermione says nothing. Minerva watches her rummage through her satchel for a comb and other personal items. She smells like butter and peppermints. She's solid, but not plodding. There are muscles in the lovely curve of her backside and her thighs, muscles under the gold–tinged skin at her shoulders and arms. In Minerva's flowing yoga costume, she looks like that first generation of young women who never ruined their feet with high heels, never learned to make their gestures small and unobtrusive, never incinerated their hair to make it sleeker or curlier, grew up free to swim and dance and climb trees and bat balls around with authority. There are dimples on her cheeks, her elbows, and one singleton above her right knee. Her auburn hair is streaked with gold. It shall not be tamed by any means magical or mechanical. She is far too young and far too inexperienced and far too frightened and she is fully qualified to be Minister for Magic oe'r all the United Kingdom.

She is climbing into Minerva's bed and kissing her as if she were spun from sugar.

 _I held her as she spoke her first spell. I held her as she tasted her first woman. I held her as she breathed her last breath. But, tonight? Tonight, at long last?_

Tonight is everything.


	25. Gnillehs - TOW Neville

A/N: Warning. All-Purpose Warning. Won't Give It Away, But, Seriously, Warning. You Have Been Warned.

* * *

The door opens in late afternoon. Minerva enters, talking.

She apologizes for not being at the Ministry during the early part of the day, but she was up most of the night working on something for Dumbledore. She's famished, and if Jane hasn't had her tea, Minerva can bring food and beverage to the flat, or they might travel together up to the communications tower and watch the sunset from there. She has some questions about protective charms that, perhaps, Jane might –

She stops. Hermione is seated in a chair near the hearth. She hasn't moved. Dawning awareness of this, Hermione sees, has halted Minerva mid-babble.

Hermione rises from the chair. She rises slowly, and not entirely for the effect.

"I told you no," she says. Her voice is cool. Level. It is as controlled as the measured steps she takes toward the center of the room, as neutral as the face she shows Minerva.

"Jane? Are you well?"

Silence.

"Where is your wand?" Minerva scans the room.

Hermione pulls her wand from her sleeve just far enough for Minerva to identify it, then slips it back.

"I – I don't understand," Minerva says.

"Clearly," Hermione tells her.

Minerva looks as if she were doing long division in her head. Hermione waits. "I'll summon the matron," Minerva says. She backs slowly away. When her back meets the door, she reaches behind her to find that the doorknob is missing. She turns. The door has become a wall.

"You're scaring me," she says quickly.

" _Now_ , you're scared? _Here_ , you're scared? You could have been killed," Hermione says. "You could have killed us all. Do you understand that, Minerva? Not just yourself and your friends, not just the Ministry. All of us. London. Beyond. If there weren't three adults looking after you, you might have murdered millions." She feels her jaw locking up against the need to scream some truth into the little idiot.

"Jane, I –"

"You irresponsible," Hermione begins, and feels the heat rise along with her voice, "Arrogant," the words rumble like thunder as she hurls them across the room, "Thoughtless, deceitful, INFANT."

Minerva stares at her, the hurt raw and explicit, unable or unwilling to defend herself.

 _She's twenty-eight years old_. Hermione breathes hard and says nothing. _God only knows how old I am_.

"I am a soldier," Minerva whispers. "You said it yourself."

No outside sound penetrates this far into the Ministry. Hermione herself has made sure that no sound escapes. They are alone here, in this tiny box, just as alone as they are in Hermione's mokeskin bag or would be in the tiny pocket of volatile nowhere Minerva has hidden within an antique Rolex.

Minerva's focus is on the floor, somewhere between the two of them. "Jane," she says. "Love," she says. "You are dying," she says.

"Oh, for god's – "

"You keep forgetting how talented I am. You said that, too. Remember? You're dying, Jane." And here, the pain stamped on Minerva's face and body comes crashing out in her words. "You're aging much, much faster than you ought to be. I know. The healers know. I told them to look for it, and they found it. I can see you. I can see you, and I can smell you, and I can taste you, and I can hear you like no one else can. Irresponsible, arrogant, thoughtless, deceitful infant I may be," she says, "And your lover."

"You can't understand."

"You'll die if you don't find a way to control what's happening to you. And if you won't make the cursed thing, then I will. And I know bloody well what might happen, and that there are at least four beings of great power looking out for me while I'm at it. Oh, aye, I've worked out a few things, Jane. I have," she nods as if affirming her own assertion, pulls herself up to full height, looks Hermione squarely in the eye and dares her to blink. "I have."

Hermione turns her back on the conversation. The fear that flared into anger is cooling back to fear, again. And then, even the fear takes too much effort.

The only grief she feels is for Minerva. Minerva, who will watch her die. Minerva, who will send her off to die again. Minerva, who will tell the children what she has done, knowing it won't matter why she has done it. Minerva, who cannot have known how to create a time-turner while living among skilled legilimens for that abominable year, not without giving it all away. Minerva, who gave her the cursed thing in the first place. Minerva, who was just forced to tell her reason for living that she cannot go on living.

 _In that case, I really wish I had a cigarette,_ Hermione thinks. This revelation is not a surprise. It's a confirmation. In a way, it is a relief.

She allows the door to return to the wall behind Minerva. Then she says, "Take off your clothes. Put both hands on the chest of drawers and wait for me."

* * *

In the privy, Hermione finds three kinds of cigarettes left for her by the house elves, there next to the flannel and soap.

 _Feck is an excellent listener._

She selects the non-menthol filtered for no reason other than she likes the design of the package, and lights it with her wand. It isn't her first cigarette. And she's familiar enough with wizard tobacco and good old-fashioned Amsterdam cannabis that when she inhales, her body has no reaction except a slight uptick in heart rate. The smoke gives a gratifying vagueness to the face in the mirror.

* * *

When Hermione emerges from the privy, Minerva is naked, with her hands on the chest of drawers and her eyes on her hands.

Hermione passes behind Minerva, but does not touch her. She gathers an ashtray from the sitting room and brings it back to the bed. The position is carefully chosen. Minerva cannot see Hermione's reflection in the mirror above the maple dresser. Hermione sits, smokes, keeps one foot on the floor. She watches Minerva from behind and considers.

Minerva's breathing is not quite calm. Still, she doesn't twitch. She doesn't move out of the position she has been told to hold. _She must be wondering how I know,_ Hermione muses. _Or if I know._

Hermione reminds herself that she isn't just talking to the willful brat, but to the leader of men, the Ministry manager, the teacher, the scientist. She's talking to thirty-year-old Minerva and forty-year-old Minerva and seventy-year-old Minerva and ninety-year-old Minerva. All of them.

She inhales the smoke deep into her lungs and releases it through her nose. She has always wanted to do that.

 _Well, that's true of everyone, isn't it? It's just that most of us don't remember facing that future listener. We don't know that we'll be held responsible for every word every time we are held._

Finally, conversationally, she asks, "How stupid would I have to be, Minerva, to do this without knowing how much you want me to do this?"

Minerva does not look up to answer. "Fair stupid, Jane."

"Am I that stupid?"

"No, you're not."

Hermione stubs out her cigarette and joins Minerva at the chest of drawers. Minerva is inches away, not looking, not moving. Hermione crosses her arms and makes her wait. She counts to twenty, then says, "You'll have to ask me."

Minerva takes a deep, steadying breath. It does not appear to steady her. Hermione can see the trembling at close range. She can see the way she's pressing her weight into the hard surface in order to keep herself from shaking.

"Jane," Minerva says, gravely.

Hermione's knees nearly give out. That voice. She wasn't expecting that voice. Minerva herself doesn't seem able to predict it, or to produce it at will. It's feminine and vulnerable and beautiful and intensely erotic. Minerva can no more control that tone of voice than a cat can control its purr.

Minerva licks her lips. "Will ye spank me, please?" She finishes.

In answer, Hermione puts one arm across Minerva at the shoulders, just above her breasts. Minerva is still off-balance and leaning into the dresser. Hermione prepares to steady her. "Take your hands off the dresser, Lintie," she says.

Hermione feels Minerva's racing heart as she lifts both palms off the supporting surface. Hermione supports her weight on one arm, not allowing her to rebalance.

Hermione shifts, moves in closer, so that Minerva's side is braced firmly against breasts, belly, pelvis and thighs.

She drops a kiss on Minerva's shoulder. Minerva holds the supporting arm with both hands.

"You may watch yourself in the mirror, if you like," she whispers into Minerva's ear.

Then she draws one open palm back and brings it around in a wide arc to land – _smack_ \- upon Minerva's bare bottom. Minerva flinches, and then relaxes. Hermione steadies her. She strokes Minerva's bottom, exploring the unfamiliar contours.

Then she smacks Minerva again, hard, on precisely the same spot as before.

Just before the blow lands, Minerva tilts her hips, almost imperceptibly, back and up to meet it. Her mouth is open and her eyes are closed.

One more. Two more. Five altogether on the same spot until the cheek is hot and red. The next blow falls on the other cheek. Minerva's breathing is deep and even, as if hypnotized, or meditating. Hermione makes that cheek match its twin. Two. Three. Four. Five. The hand is controlling the rhythm of Minerva's breathing. Hermione strokes the skin again, lingering at the line that divides, teasing with her fingertips.

Then she lands a series of blows erratically, making sure to keep no rhythm, so that Minerva has no way to anticipate or prepare for the sting.

Minerva's breathing goes heavy and shallow.

Hermione dips two fingers down into the plump, ripe flesh between Minerva's legs and finds that she is soaking wet. Minerva stiffens. Hermione holds her tighter, knowing that she is exercising her last shred of will not to impale herself on the two fingers exploring her inner folds.

"There are no good answers for us. You know that, don't you?" Hermione asks.

Minerva shakes her head yes.

"Say it."

"Yes," Minerva promptly responds.

Hermione rewards this by flicking Minerva's clitoris with the tip of her middle finger.

Minerva hisses as she sucks in air between clenched teeth. She clasps Hermione's supporting arm more tightly.

Hermione stops flicking.

"You may tell me you love me," Hermione says.

"I love you," Minerva gasps without hesitation.

"Good. I'm a selfish old witch and I want you all to myself."

Minerva smiles softly.

"So when Xiomara Hooch rides back into town on her sexy broomstick, you'll have to tell her you belong to someone else. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

Hermione rewards this with three more sharp blows landed quickly.

Minerva is becoming heavier, leaning more into Hermione's solid body. Hermione resumes teasing her clitoris.

"I want you to think about something," Hermione whispers into her ear, "I want you to think about how important it is to have a safe place to do dangerous things."

Minerva can only nod, now.

"And someone you can trust to do them with," Hermione tells her. She traces the shell of Minerva's ear with the tip of her tongue. Hermione senses how close she has been brought to orgasm. She moves her fingers away from their compelling purpose, lifts them to her mouth and tastes them. She allows Minerva to hear this happening.

Minerva shivers.

"Now, we are going to lie on that bed and pleasure each other in the position colloquially known as sixty-nine, like decent lesbians," Hermione tells her, "Instead of the desperate deviants we so clearly are."

The sound that emerges from Minerva is remarkably like a giggle.

* * *

 **Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Christmas Day 1997**

* * *

"Say it."

"Jane, will you spank me please? Yes! I love you."

"Again."

"Jane, will you spank me please? Yes! I love you."

"Again."

"Jane, will you spank me please? Yes! I love you."

"I don't know why you tried so hard to hide this from us, Professor. What was it again?"

"Jane, will you spank me please? Yes! I love you."

"You clearly enjoy this memory. How does it go, again?"

"Jane, will you spank me please? Yes! I love you."

"And so festive for a Christmas Day, wouldn't you agree, children?"

The Gryffindor Common Room is silent, except for the labored breathing of the Professor on her knees next to the Christmas tree. But the man with the wand doesn't really expect an answer. The manifest horror of the offenders herein gathered is response enough. _Oh, how the mighty have fallen_. "What happens to those who interfere with the running of this school, Professor McGonagall?" asks Amycus Carrow.

"Punishment," she says, slowly, as if the syllables were being dragged out of her gullet on a hook.

Carrow bends over her and stage-whispers, "No wonder you do it so often, eh?"

* * *

The loop of memory she has been forced to relive gradually fades. She becomes aware that she is on her knees in the Gryffindor Common Room. Carrow has gone. She is flanked by two of the students who have not been permitted to go home for the holiday, or who no longer have a home to go to. Her students. Who? How many? Not Creevey. He lies bleeding in the Safe Place, along with those who are tending his wounds. His many, many wounds. For what? She can't remember. She can't remember if she ever knew. She drew her wand to protect him and then – this.

She shakes all over, shuddering as if convulsed. She knows that she cannot stand on her own. And they are staring at her, the children. The blind, black rage makes a bitter bile rise in the back of her throat. The children. _The filthy bastard made them watch._

The hands that move the veil of hair away from her face and tuck it back into the knot at the nape of her neck are gentle and strong. They replace the tall hat that has fallen off her head. Yes. This would be Longbottom.

"Stand back," says a voice she should recognize, "I'm Irish."

And the young man crouching on her other side gives way to another, who puts one hand over her own balled fist and says, "Professor, we've got to get you back to safety. The Room has moved. The wards need recasting. And I really, really, desperately want to stay alive long enough to talk a beautiful woman into spanking my arse until I love her."

"I don't know, Seamus," says Neville Longbottom, "There's only so much magic can do. That might be a violation of Gamp's Law."

"A man has a right to dream," replies Seamus Finnigan.

Her glasses are placed in her hand. She puts them on. "Who?" She manages, at last.

"Boot, Finnigan, and me," Longbottom tells her.

"Boot, Finnigan, and I," she corrects him.

"That, too," he says. Now she is being lifted to her feet by strong young men. Longbottom doesn't let go once she is standing. She's unsteady on her feet and he has a supporting arm around her. "We needed to learn a lesson about respect, apparently."

"And we learned a valuable one, I think," Finnigan adds. She is gently guided toward the door. "Those people are feckin eejits, aren't they?"

She sways. Her vision is clearing, now. She sees less of 1954 and more of 1997.

"He actually thought we'd respect you _less_ ," says a third voice. Boot.

"Has he ever been seventeen, do you think?" Finnigan wonders.

She stops, dizzy. Longbottom wraps two arms around her and settles her gently onto an overstuffed chair. "I think we'll need a plate of sweets and some brandy before she'll be walking on her own again. Terry, has Dobby finished?"

"Yeah. Colin's practically getting a sponge-bath in the 'm' word. I'll get Dobby to come round."

"Wait," Minerva says, "Boys, wait."

Their forms come into focus, now. One standing, two kneeling beside the chair. They wait. They wait patiently and unquestioningly.

"He thought," she says, "He thought he was seeing shame. He thought the thing I'd fight to keep would be shame." She shakes her head. She has won. She knows that she has won. They might see what she sees, but they cannot know what she knows. "Not shame," she tells them, "Private. Sacred."

Longbottom chews his lower lip, worrying a cut left by the back of a hand last week. "Private and sacred," he says, clearly speaking for all three. "Done."

"Feckin eejits," says Finnigan.


	26. Kral - TOW More Dementors

A/N: In Which Wilhelmina Tuft Regrets Hermione's Vow of Frank and Open Discourse

* * *

The search to find someone other than Minerva who can kill a dementor halts when Minister Tuft comes to understand that the ability must be exceedingly rare, and that the Ministry is casting about in the dark in hopes of landing on something that cannot be identified. Is it a genetic ability, something endemic to one's magical gifts, or a character trait, like the ability to cast _cruciatus_ and mean it? Whatever the answer, it quickly becomes obvious that allowing everyone to give it a try and then ripping the memory out of him or her after near-inevitable failure is not an efficient solution.

So.

Minerva it is. They ought to have asked her in the first place, instead of half-killing Jane in an attempt to repeat that first, accidental, and near-fatal, success.

If Feck had not retrieved Minerva that morning, summoning her to the control chamber, Merlin only knows what might have happened to Jane.

* * *

Feck yanks her through the ether faster than Minerva has ever apparated. She lands with a lurch nearly on top of Jane.

 _She's dead_ , Minerva thinks. She lies still on the floor, grey as ashes, with the dementors pulling something from her, in spite of the protection from the shield charm cast by Minister Tuft. The dementors look, to Minerva's clouded mind, like the Big Bad Wolf in reverse. They are sucking and sucking, but the thing that is her lover swirls about Minerva like a whirlwind, anchored around a center that Minerva cannot find, though she clearly occupies it.

Minerva cannot dim the memory of Jane's staring, glassy eyes.

" _Relashio_!" Feck shouts. It is all the prompting Minerva needs. She leaps to her feet already hurling the spell with murder in her heart. She casts it so hard and so fast that souls explode out of their wretched shells like fireworks on the fifth of November. It feels like – Minerva searches for an adequate word – it feels like slimy wind. It rushes through her hair and rips at her clothes. It smells briny, like wind whipping off the North Sea. It takes her a few moments to realize that the crashing roar filling the chamber isn't the ocean, but her own voice crying doom at the enemy.

And then the dementors are gone. Or, not exactly gone, but fundamentally altered in some irreversible way. They are drawn into a version of Jane's very intriguing watch. This version is shaped like an hourglass instead of a modern clockface. And then she is standing in an ice-covered chamber with a shivering Minister Tuft. Jane, she is told, has been spirited away by Feck and is receiving medical treatment.

It takes Minerva an agonizingly long time to understand that corpses do not receive medical treatment.

When she does, she realises that her wand is still raised, and her chest is heaving from the effort of the spell. She turns to Minister Tuft and says, "You'll nae have her do this again. Mark you what I did to those foul beasties. I'll do it to you, or to Dumbledore, or to God almighty if I am crossed in this."

"Rarefied company, indeed," the Minister replies.

* * *

"McGonagall will do it. She has agreed. That is final. Your objections are noted. They are also dismissed."

Hermione doesn't have the energy left to groan. _I've fallen down the rabbit hole again_ , she thinks.

"When the second core is embedded in the transfiguration matrix, I will make the prototype available to you. Feel free to use it to return to your point of origin."

"Wilhelmina, you don't know what you're risking," Hermione croaks. Nobody, but nobody, should have to endure having her soul sucked out, stashed, and stuffed back in _twice_ in one lifetime. At least this time, it happened under controlled conditions, and they were prepared for it. _They_ being a euphemism for _Feck_ in this instance.

Wilhelmina Tuft does not reply.

"Who needs dementors?" Hermione tells her, "You can suck the warmth out of the world without saying a word. In fact, I think you do it _by_ not saying a word. That way, the next Dark Wizard to wage a war to end all wars won't be able to pluck the information right out of Minerva's head and use it to wrench a hole in the timeline large enough to blow London off the map and out of the history books. How far back do you think someone like Grindelwald could get a ruptured timeline to blow? Fifty years? One hundred?"

"But Grindelwald is dead."

"You may want to revisit that assumption," Hermione tells her. "And there are plenty more where he came from. There are always more."

The Matron bustles into the isolated room and, pausing only to aim a particularly poisonous glance at the Minister for Magic, forces Hermione to lie back down on the bed from which she has half-risen. She fusses soothingly until Hermione's galloping pulse slows to a workable canter.

This activity takes most of ten minutes, during which Wilhelmina Tuft neither gives ground nor alters her posture in any way.

Before Matron gets out the door, Minister Tuft stops her. "Matron," she asks, clipping the word with a precision that any surgeon might envy, "How much has Miss Puckle aged since her arrival four years ago?"

"That is confident – "

"Matron!"

"A dozen years, give or take," barks the medi-witch.

Wilhelmina Tuft does not respond to this. The Matron hesitates, then clearly decides that she ought to take the escape route before it disappears.

Hermione closes her eyes. _What is that? Fifty-six? Fifty-seven?_ "Somebody owes me a bloody boatload of birthday gifts," she says, having not quite intended to say it aloud.

Wilhelmina Tuft has traded her Edwardian lace for a velvet collar and a string of pearls. If Hermione were speculating, she'd say that the Minister for Magic has been dressing for a man, lately. A younger man. The feared fingers toy absently with the pearls at her throat. "They tell me," she says, "That you have a gift for memory charms."

* * *

"It isn't possible to heal trauma with memory charms," the medi-witch is telling the other healers gathered about Elphie, "Because a lasting memory charm requires an Obliterator. That is, the memory of a trauma so overwhelming that it overtakes other pathways of thought. Like a magnet, it keeps dragging one's mind back to itself. Memory charms performed without an Obliterator, real or implanted, wear off. Or, rather, the mind can heal itself around the charm and knit the strands of memory back together. And one cannot heal a trauma by inflicting a second trauma."

"Will his nightmares ease naturally, do you think?" Minerva asks, when the others have gone, "I hate to see him suffer so."

Right this minute, Elphinstone Urquart does not seem to be suffering much. He sits cross-legged on the floor of the Ministry's medical wing, browsing the enchanted magazines Minerva has brought to pass the time while she spends her daily hour with him. There is something in the end notes she needs to re-read. All the information about the behaviour of atoms is straightforward to a master of transfiguration. The really intriguing bits are about a fellow named Turing.

Elphie is "helping" her read.

Somewhere, someone has taught him to knit.

The needles dip and clack away like sleek wooden wands. Elphie knits a line or two from the pattern in one magazine before getting bored and moving on to the next magazine, finding some line of the knitting pattern to follow until he gets bored again.

"Where are the secrets, Minerva?" He asks her, wide-eyed. "I've lost all our secrets."

"I believe you've got to follow one knitting pattern from beginning to end to get anything that makes sense," Minerva tells him.

"Where is the Pickle lady?" He asks. "I like her. She'll know where the secrets got to."

Minerva lays aside the magazine she has been studying. "What do you remember of her?" She asks.

"I was lost," he says. Minerva waits, but no more comes. He's stopped his knitting, dropped the project to his lap. He's rocking back and forth and staring off into a dimension of space-time Minerva cannot see.

"You're found, now," Minerva soothes. "I'll let nothing harm you."

He stops rocking and, eventually, smiles. "Wizard!" He says.

The heap of multi-colored yarn in his lap gets held up and examined. He eyes it one way, and then the other. Finally, he puts his head through one of the many apertures and does a bit of wiggling to get the whole thing down over his shoulders. The jumper has three arms, two on the left-hand side and one coming out of the middle of his back. The right-side has no sleeves. It has no holes, either. The collar is lined with buttons. Minerva can see that small knit flowers have been attached to the inside of the jumper at the neckline, which describes a deep vee.

"It fits!" Elphie crows. He's lost weight, having acquired a taste for pineapples and bananas difficult for the Ministry to supply. He responds to exposure to Elphinstone Urquart's belongings with indifference or anxiety. He's acquired a rudimentary grasp of Bulgarian and a smattering of Hawai'ian. Urquart and Ruddlesby were right-handed. This man is left-handed most of the time. When Ruddlesby's uncle travels from Puddleby-on-the-Marsh to enquire into the circumstances of his death, this man reveals an encyclopaedic knowledge of great glass sea snails.

"It's you," Minerva assures him.

* * *

It feels so good, this kind of lovemaking with Minerva. It is long, and slow, and unhurried. It may have a familiar pattern, but it is nothing like the step-by-step script Ron followed. It is more like the meals she and Minerva make together, or the lesson plans they made long before that. It is something only these two can make, and only together.

It is some kissing, and some talking, and more kissing in places where the talk seems to call for kissing. It's back-scratching and massaging. There's stroking and caressing, toying and tickling. It may be laughing, or naughty words, or even wrestling for control of the next few moments.

It is asking.

 _How does that feel? More? Harder? Can you move like this? Will you lick me here? Can I touch you there?_

It is telling.

 _Here, let me show you. I love you. Gods, you are so delicious. I want your mouth here. I need you inside me. That feels so good. That feels perfect. You are perfect._

It is demanding.

 _Bend over. On your knees. Fuck me. Make me. Now._

It is riding all the waves of sensation and emotion. It is stopping when the nerves have scraped raw and something unbidden has been brought up from forgotten depths. It is trying, and sometimes failing, and being at home no matter what happens. It is a tired tongue, a cramped shoulder, a knotted calf muscle, a finger-shaped bruise, all made holy by sighs, by moans, by pleading and pleased nonsense syllables, by the clutching of hands, by the arching of backs and the closing of eyes, by lips and chins and thighs sticky with satisfaction, by cheeks wet with unexpected tears.

It is Minerva trying to make no noise as she slips into bed behind her, passing a few moments politely allowing Hermione to sleep, then giving in to the need to spoon up against her and hold her, nested, breathing in time with one another until Minerva tenses in awareness that Hermione is not sleeping. It is feeling the smooth, cool flesh of Minerva's long body grow warm against Hermione's back, and feeling the way that flesh responds to Hermione's throaty chuckle.

It is turning over, smiling in the dark at slightly reflective eyes, and saying, "I'm fine. Fancy a shag?"

* * *

Hermione envies Minerva's night-vision. Then again, she doesn't. Not this time. It is, perhaps, better that Hermione can only just make out the dim outline of Minerva's sleeping form.

 _Our lives depend on this, Lintie. Possibly, everyone's lives depend on this._

If Minerva didn't know that, somewhere in her possible future, Hermione would not be here. Everything, from the properties of her wedding ring to the memory of first times, tells Hermione that this is true. Clever witch. She's found a way to send messages through time that cannot be mined for evil.

Hermione points her wand. Better to do it now. Nine turners will suffice until Tuft finds another maker. When the thing is done, Hermione will take herself away and decide whether to attempt a return, or to leave the Ministry with ten turners and succumb to the inevitable somewhere safe and private.

 _You loved an older witch. You nurtured Elphinstone Urquart through a terrible injury. You ought to leave the Ministry in frustration at being a secretary to those less gifted than yourself. Those laughing men take credit for your transfiguration expertise and keep you out of the inner circle, keep you ignorant and in your place. You're going to resign in the morning, move out of this dull Ministry flat, go home, and pour out your troubles to Dumbledore. He'll know what to do._

 _I've done this before._

 _Yoga breath_ , Hermione thinks, and holds her hand open, palm out, searching with all her senses for the passages that need re-writing in the book of Minerva's life.

 _Keep you ignorant and in your place. Keep you ignorant and in your place._

Why is her heart racing? Why is the bile rising up in her throat? Why have her trembling hands balled into fists? She clutches her wand to her chest, weak, and angry at her own weakness. She won't. She can't.

And Minerva has her wand.

It happens so fast, Hermione does not even register motion. Minerva's eyes are closed. But she has Hermione's wand.

"Right decision," Minerva tells the night. Then she opens her eyes and fixes them on Hermione. "I have a better idea," she says.


	27. Sdnah - The One With The Beginning

A/N: The author is not responsible for untimely chocolate-related deaths. Jo thought that one up.

* * *

"I love this place," Jane says. Minerva is tempted to remind her that she loves all libraries, but it isn't necessary. There is only so much time left.

She puts her arms around Jane there in the midnight quiet of the Hogwarts Restricted Section and draws her close. "Someday," Minerva whispers to her, "I am going to make you come for me with all these books watching you."

Jane draws back. Her eyebrows knit together. Gaslight casts their joined shadows over old leather. Minerva pulls an envelope from her robes. Jane looks at the envelope, looks at Minerva, then repeats the sequence, blinking, twice more.

The square of parchment crackles as it unfolds in Jane's hands. She scans the first few lines, then closes her eyes. When she opens them, she reads:

"From The Desk of Jane Puckle

Headmistress,

Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world. I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell."

"This came to me that night, Jane. When you went down into the black to save Ruddlesby."

Jane reads the address on the envelope:

 **Minerva McGonagall, Ministry of Magic, Department of Mysteries, Running Barefoot Through The Corridor, Calling For Feck The House-Elf.**

"Conked me right on the head," Minerva tells her.

Jane finally finds her voice. "This - this is not good, Lintie," she stammers.

Another voice emerges from the shadows beyond the reach of the gaslights. "On the contrary, my dear. It is all we need to know." Dumbledore steps into the light. His fingers gently caress the magazines arrayed on a nearby table. Each one is open to a page printed with a knitting pattern.

"No matter what else happens, we know I don't betray you," Minerva tells Jane. She gathers her close again, uncaring of her audience, and kisses her. First, she drops gentle kisses on her forehead and cheeks, the tip of her nose, and then she kisses her on the lips. For a moment, they are the only two people in the world.

It is Jane who pulls away first. Minerva doesn't quite release her. She isn't sure Jane can remain standing without support. The dark circles under her eyes, the bones visible beneath her skin, the scent of malnutrition and infirmity that only Minerva can detect make iron of her resolve. _This is the right thing._

"Are you ready?" Dumbledore asks.

Minerva gives the magazines a good, long look. Each line of each pattern is now a cipher. Jane calls it her _reboot program._

Knit one. Purl two.

All of time-turner magic is encoded in five cardigans, a shawl, fifteen pairs of socks, and four afghans. Including backups. Minerva will, if the memory charm works, protect these with her life, of course. Only two people in the kingdom know the whole process. They are both in this room.

"All right, then," Jane says, checking the magazines right behind Minerva, "This may be the most brilliant thing I've ever seen you do, Lintie. And that is saying something. Given the circumstances, I think it might not hurt anything to tell you that our childrens' grandmother has preserved this information a hundred times over already, and it is being reluctantly worn by almost everyone we know."

Albus Dumbledore doesn't laugh often. He occasionally chuckles and twinkles. But the kind of bone-rattling belly-laugh that now overtakes him requires the element of surprise, and nobody surprises a legilimens. Except Jane. Jane can surprise anybody.

He laughs so hard that he has to summon a bench and sit down.

Jane sits beside him and pats him on the back until he catches his breath. "Every dark wizard from now to the next century has looked at it and seen nothing but a bloody hideous jumper."

* * *

Minerva is comfortable. The medical wing of Hogwarts has been spelled for absolute privacy. Dumbledore has the dull silver pensieve on the bedside table. In a few moments, Minerva will take the memories it contains into her body. Not merely immerse herself into them, she will physically consume them.

Hermione stands behind the bed, ready to work with the material once it is introduced. Every atom in her body screams to stop this thing. It is monstrous. But Minerva will make it happen no matter who does the memory work. Hermione trusts nobody else. It must happen this way. Minerva is right. Again.

The man who looks like Elphinstone Urquart rests quietly on a bed outside their work zone. It is the first peaceful night's sleep he's had in some time.

The dementor attacks - all of the dementor attacks that poor mind once contained - are in the pensieve.

Minerva will take them. She'll take them, and Hermione will arrange them into an order that leaves Project Now and Then's foray into dementor research a disastrous failure led by an incompetent Muggle-born named Jane Puckle. It leaves Jane Puckle dead on the floor of a Ministry control chamber. When the dementors finish her off, they turn on her young lover, Minerva McGonagall. Foolish girl.

Only three will know better. Minister Wilhelmina Tuft dies of an unsuspected allergy to chocolate in 1958. Albus Dumbledore finds a way to end his own life before he is too weak to keep secrets. Feck the house-elf never appears in the history books at all. House-elves seldom do.

History does not record how time-turner regulator cores are made. It _will_ record the deadly consequences of getting it wrong.

Hermione cradles Minerva's head in her hands as Dumbledore prepares the transfer of memory. She hopes to god she knows what she's doing.

* * *

 _When it happens, it happens in far less time._

Hermione emerges at a dead run from a mirage-shimmer of air just this side of Section 808.838 732. The distance from there to here is covered immediately and Hermione slams into her, pulling up at the last moment only enough to avoid toppling and breaking bones. In the moment between emergence and contact, Minerva can see Hermione's face, see eyes fully framed in crows' feet, lips in laugh lines, hair more salt than pepper. Minerva doesn't even have to look hard to know it by heart, because she has seen that face before in circumstances that have graven it in memory.

 _It takes seven years, nine months and a brace of days in remembered time and something over eleven in subjective time. Possibly three minutes as the library clock ticks._

"Oh, God," Hermione gasps in her arms, with a voice like steel wool and fingers like steel talons. "Oh, God," she repeats. Gulps for air. Tries to shudder down a discordant bark that breaks free anyway and vibrates against Minerva's skin even as Hermione kisses her at neck and jawline and cheek, "I am so sorry, Lintie. I am so, so sorry. Forgive me," she croaks. Then she asks again, whispering. "Forgive me."

* * *

Minerva McGonagall is sobbing in the arms of her wife.

The spectral lynx in the hearth clears its throat and says, in the voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt, "I'll just see myself out, then. Right."


	28. Coda

A/N: Finis

* * *

"Grandmother?"

Wilhelmina Tuft takes the measure of the two young people standing watch outside the small chamber from which she has emerged. The male is dark, in his mid-thirties, extremely tall, and dressed in traditional robes. If he is the Shacklebolt of this era, he cannot have been in office for long. The one calling her _grandmother_ is female, younger, fair-skinned and sandy-haired, and much too thin. They have both forgotten to confiscate her time-turner. At least, Wilhelmina assumes this is their purpose. It would be were she running this department.

"Am I, dear?" She replies to the witch, "How lovely."

Wilhelmina is prepared for changes in customs and social mores. So the witch's feral whoop of triumph, complex hand-slapping ritual shared with her counterpart, and the words, "I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!" Yelled at top volume do not discomfit her. She pats her hair into place and checks her own clothing for presentability.

The door to this anteroom opens.

"Minister!" Exults her descendant, "Didn't I tell you? I told you! I told you there is no way Wilhelmina Tuft died accidentally of a bloody chocolate allergy!"

"Language, Fiona," the wizard replies, gravely. Then, at the youngster's crestfallen expression, adds, "So you did." His voice is basso profundo. His gaze has remained fixed upon her. Wilhelmina is glad she had a moment to compose herself before his arrival.

* * *

1958

* * *

There.

Her quill has tattooed the final word of her promised memoir into the parchment. When it is dry, she lays the sheaf before her on the French Provincial desk, closes her eyes and calms her mind.

She stands.

Her hands are out. Her palms are down, hovering over the paper. In her mind's eye, she can see him, even after all these years, an image perfect in every detail. A man perfect in every detail.

Antoine Shacklebolt.

Utterly, completely impossible. She never said a word. No consequence of voicing her desire could be less than disastrous. But, oh, desire it was. From the first moment he strode into the Ministry in 1939, trailing an entourage of young American wizards behind him, he has entirely defined Wilhelmina's understanding of _man_. Six and a half feet tall, broad shouldered, somehow showing hard muscle even draped in flowing royal blue robes of soft cotton, he was the blackest human being Wilhelmina had ever seen.

She stopped, dumbfounded, halfway across the tiled floor. He walked right up to her and said…something. She has no memory of what it was. She only knows that a lifetime of believing herself indifferent to sex was blown into millions of small pieces.

She lets herself remember how the place between her thighs sent a spike of flame to burn rational thought right out of her head. In that moment, the memoir glows a bright, blinding orange.

Then the light dims as the paper sinks into the surface of the desk. The hard finish of the wood flows back over the rupture like honey flowing over buttered bread. She removes a small glass bead from a chain around her neck and crushes it into the surface, shattering the thin wall of glass with her thumb and mingling her own blood with the drop of _hi_ s that the bead had contained. It, too, disappears below the surface of the desk.

* * *

1998

* * *

Kingsley Shacklebolt never laughed so hard in his life. Indeed, in the past few years, he never imagined laughing again, let alone laughing until tears come to his eyes. _Oh, my. That is perfect. That is absolutely perfect._

It is love at first sight. The house elves, however, cower in a corner at his outburst, terrified of his laughter and, he realizes with a great sobering stab of anger, terrified after two years of abuse at the hands of the sham government they have been serving.

"Oh, little ones," he says, beaming at them. "Thank you. You have made me so happy. This is exactly what I've always wanted."

The astonished relief in those large, luminous eyes, the shy pleasure – pride – in their bearing as they salute and pop back to their own domain – that is the entire point of power, he believes. Power is for lifting.

And he sits himself down at the tiny French Provincial desk. It is the only piece of office furniture left in Ministry stores that doesn't have some kind of curse or lingering residue of dark magic upon it. In fact, it seems to light up the room. It Isn't until six months after he first sits down that he finds he's had a serious papercut. And something wholly unexpected happens.

* * *

Now

* * *

He has told himself hundreds of times, over the years, that a few historical photos and one slim volume of memoirs cannot accurately capture the whole truth of a witch. Even if the photos do show a ripe and womanly witch of compelling calm and easy natural authority. Even if the slim volume is the one piece of literature he has read more often and more thoroughly than any other. Even if the blank surprise of finding it gives way to delighted surprise at the gracious, self-deprecating wit of the woman. Even if he wonders at her steely resolve, her relentless sense of personal responsibility, and the knowledge that she has jettisoned the famous public persona and written something specifically, deeply, intimately for _him._

He prays he has read it correctly.

His goddaughter's triumphant voice comes cackling from the other side of the antechamber door. Quickly, he checks his reflection in the shiny black tiles, makes the sudden decision to remove his hat, does the silly grimacing smile that happens when checking the teeth for debris, and deals with his nerves by shaking out his arms and hands. He clears his throat.

He opens the door.

* * *

It takes her a few moments to remember to breathe. Then he is bending over her outstretched hand and lightly brushing his full lips over her shaking fingers. After that, she has to remind herself not to breathe quite so hard.

"Madam Tuft," he says, "How I've looked forward to this moment."

"Thank you," she manages.

He is smiling. The descendant is beaming at them both. The wizard next to her remembers to say, "Will Madam Tuft be needing accommodation, Minister?"

"Yes, Thomas," says the Minister for Magic. "She'll be taking over Madam Granger's office, I think."

 _And in a few months, if all goes well, Madam Granger will be taking over mine._

He offers her an arm, pulls her small hand through to rest on his elbow and covers it with his own large, warm hand. "You'll not get your old desk back, however," he mock-whispers to her as they move together down the black tiled hall, "I love it far too much."

* * *

Minerva will never say it aloud to anyone, but the longest wait of her long life is between those moments when Hermione first emerges from her library stacks and the moment Ministry medi-wizards confirm that the metastasized sands of time no longer accelerate the aging of her cells. And that is because, she understands, this is the first time in a long time she hasn't had a preview of the most likely outcome. She is free. Freedom has its price.

So does destiny, of course.

When they are alone at last in their bedroom - the sun streaming over the Bombay chest, Minerva sitting on the thick window ledge enjoying the warmth and quiet, Hermione sitting on the bed, propped up with pillows, clean and with a reasonable suggestion of pink returned to her cheeks - Hermione says, "Well, you may have revealed your last secret, but you're still fascinating."

 _Not quite all, but close enough for Ministry work_ , Minerva thinks. She says, "You've acquired enough for both of us, I think."

"I shan't keep them long."

Out on the loch, Minerva's squid is performing a graceful water ballet in broad daylight. There will be some interesting postings on the children's Muggle machines tonight. She stretches the muscles in her neck and shoulders, hoping that the week's knots may work themselves out in a year or two. "How do you feel?" She asks.

There is a significant silence during which a long, slow smile spreads across Hermione's face. Minerva suppresses the grin threatening her own lips and hugs her right knee tighter to her chest. Hermione pats the bed beside her, absently caressing the soft tartan bed cloth in the same motion. "Here," she says.

Minerva uncoils her long limbs and makes the descent from her perch one deliberate step at a time. This sort of thing requires planning at her age. The soft bed feels heavenly when she's finally comfortably arranged upon it. Everything smells new, today. The open windowpane lets the breeze ruffle their clothing and blow grass, sedge, sweet pine and briny water over the room. Birdsong carries long distances on a small island. Wood doves converse in the eaves just outside the window.

They are wrapped around one another in one swift, practiced motion, each knowing where she fits in the familiar joining.

Minerva's slow, deliberate brushing of lips upon lips, her delay of opening to more intimate contact until she knows her body will no longer give her the choice, the gently patient play of her tongue tasting Hermione's, savoring each moment of the velvety texture, the tug-of-war between who's over and who is under, who's in and who's out, the retreat, careful nipping of tender lips, and the going back for more – these things keep confidential the raw, full-body, desperate _need_ possessing Minerva at this moment. It must be, she thinks, the hands that give her away. Because her fingers clutch at Hermione with an almost convulsive will of their own. They grasp and cling at hip and shoulders in ways that must bruise.

* * *

There is, in the library downstairs, a book. In that book, there is a room. Book and room are protected by elf magic known only to the blessed. When she is strong enough, Hermione has promised to show that room to Minerva and to tell her of the shelter and belonging she has found there.

There is, in the library at Hogwarts, a book. In that book, there is a pensieve. Book and pensieve are protected by elf magic known only to the blessed. When she is strong enough, Hermione has promised to show that pensieve to Minerva, and to do with those memories what Minerva wills.

Right now, Hermione has neither strength nor will for anything but this.

The hands on her body are sending Hermione messages that Minerva is too frightened to tell. No, that isn't quite right. Hermione takes control of the kiss, forces her tongue into Minerva's open mouth, rolls Minerva back into the pillows and lifts herself up enough to pin Minerva beneath her with one bent knee. There is token resistance. But the moan Minerva breathes into Hermione's hungry mouth says everything.

It isn't that Minerva is too frightened to tell. Fear is the message itself.

Fear, and the need that is Minerva at her most elemental. Hermione pulls away from the kiss just far enough to focus on the face of the woman beneath her.

"Hey," Hermione says, "I know you."

Minerva swallows. Hermione sees in her eyes the words trying to form, and then falling away upon discovery that they are not up to this task. Minerva moves her center against Hermione's insistent thigh. Hermione increases the pressure and attaches her lips to the soft flesh at juncture of shoulder and neck, licking and sucking and biting in the way that pushes Minerva's pain threshold well beyond its workaday limit, the way that turns a sting into intense, exquisite pleasure.

Minerva whimpers.

Hermione pauses, drops a light kiss on the mark she has made, and makes Minerva see her once again. "Say it," she tells her. "Stop holding back."

"Jane," Minerva whispers.

"Yes," Hermione says, and rewards her with another kiss at the base of the neck, there on the other side. She tastes the salty sweat as she draws patterns in the skin with the tip of her tongue. She feels the racing pulse as her lips close around a thrumming vein. When she lets her teeth scrape the soft skin and sink in, not quite enough to break the flesh, she feels Minerva shiver along the entire length of her body. "And?"

"Hermione," Minerva says. Her voice is dry and rasping as her breathing becomes a kind of pant when Hermione pushes a hipbone rhythmically against the spot where Minerva's clitoris lies straining against layers of encumbering cloth.

"Yes," Hermione says. "Put your hands above your head and hold onto the headboard."

"I want to touch you," Minerva husks.

"You want me," Hermione tells her, pausing in her thorough tasting of one earlobe, "To take you."

Minerva does not answer. She closes her eyes and strokes Hermione's back.

"Tell me," Hermione whispers into her ear.

There is a war being fought in the body of the woman under her.

"You know you can," Hermione tells her.

And there is, after some few moments of rigid anxiety, a great exhalation of held breath and a relaxation of tension almost liquid, warm and flowing, as Minerva McGonagall softens and spreads beneath her. "I know," Minerva sighs. She moves her hands above her head and wraps long fingers around the rail of a headboard, "Take me," she says.

The sudden, ragged intake of breath shakes Minerva's body like a small earthquake. It seems that Minerva did not know it was coming, nor the brief cloudburst of tears that immediately follows.

Hermione, however, is prepared.

"That's my girl," she says. In the next moment, Minerva's clothing is elsewhere, and Hermione is looking at the full, glorious length of her, her long legs spread against the tartan coverlet, her breasts soft and heavy, falling away from the livid starbursts of scar tissue on her chest. Her throat is exposed, her chin held back, her normally thin lips full and puffy from hard kisses, slightly parted and drawn back from her teeth in a hiss of pleasure at the cool breeze on her suddenly exposed body. Her nipples harden and darken against the milk-white skin.

It is the most beautiful sight Hermione has ever seen. It always is, somehow, every time. She lets Minerva live in this moment long enough to feel it in her bones, stretched naked beneath her, utterly surrendered, safe, giving herself away.

* * *

It ends, as these things almost always do, far from where they thought it would.

Minerva comes keening, muscles clamped hard around Hermione's four fingers, clutched close, mouth full of softly swollen nipple. There is much holding, then, and rocking, followed by a washup, then a cup of tea and some Battenberg cake. And when Minerva feels herself all put to rights, she lights a fire in the little stove at the corner of the room, spreads Hermione out on the bed, and worships her sex with mouth and tongue and lips and teeth through an orgasm that draws itself out over so many successive crests that Hermione finally declares she never wants to see another orgasm as long as she lives and is there any good stew to be had in this wretched heap of stones.

Neither one knows what will happen next, but they've enough to be getting on with.


End file.
